  Gravitational waves from merging neutron stars are expected to be observed in
the next 5 years. We explore the potential impact of matter effects on
gravitational waves from merging double neutron-star binaries. If neutron star
binaries exist with chirp masses less than roughly 1 solar mass and typical
neutron-star radii are larger than roughly 14 km, or if neutron-star radii are
larger than 15-16 km for the chirp masses of galactic neutron-star binaries,
then matter will have a significant impact on the effectiveness of a
point-particle-based search at Advanced LIGO design sensitivity (roughly 5%
additional loss of signals). In a configuration typical of LIGO's first
observing run, extreme matter effects lead to up to 10% potential loss in the
most extreme cases.
