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Gravitational waves from the coalescence of two neutron stars were recentlydetected for the first time by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration, in event GW170817.This detection placed an upper limit on the effective tidal deformability ofthe two neutron stars and tightly constrained the chirp mass of the system. Wereport here on a new simplification that arises in the effective tidaldeformability of the binary, when the chirp mass is specified. We find that, inthis case, the effective tidal deformability of the binary is surprisinglyindependent of the component masses of the individual neutron stars, andinstead depends primarily on the ratio of the chirp mass to the neutron starradius. Thus, a measurement of the effective tidal deformability can be used todirectly measure the neutron star radius. We find that the upper limit on theeffective tidal deformability from GW170817 implies that the radius cannot belarger than ~13km, at the 90% level, independent of the assumed masses for thecomponent stars. The result can be applied generally, to probe the stellarradii in any neutron star-neutron star merger with a measured chirp mass. Theapproximate mass-independence disappears for neutron star-black hole mergers.Finally, we discuss a Bayesian inference of the equation of state that uses themeasured chirp mass and tidal deformability from GW170817 combined with nuclearand astrophysical priors and discuss possible statistical biases in thisinference.

Tidal deformability from GW170817 as a direct probe of the neutron star radius