Are neutron stars with crystalline colour superconducting cores interesting for the LIGO experiment?

Abstract

We estimate the maximal deformation that can be sustained by a rotating neutron star with a crystalline colour superconducting quark core. Our results suggest that current gravitational-wave data from LIGO have already reached the level where a detection would have been possible over a wide range of the poorly constrained QCD parameters. This leads to the non-trivial conclusion that compact objects \emph{do not} contain maximally strained colour crystalline cores drawn from this range of parameter space. We discuss the uncertainties associated with our simple model and how it can be improved in the future.