The Mass Distribution of Neutron Stars in Gravitational-wave Binaries

The discovery of two neutron star-black hole coalescences by LIGO and Virgo brings the total number of likely neutron stars observed in gravitational waves to six. We perform the first inference of the mass distribution of this extragalactic population of neutron stars. In contrast to the bimodal Ga...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Landry, Philippe, Read, Jocelyn S
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 04.11.2021
Subjects
Binary stars
Black holes
Gravitational waves
Mass distribution
Neutron stars
Neutrons
Physics - General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Physics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Pulsars
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Summary:The discovery of two neutron star-black hole coalescences by LIGO and Virgo brings the total number of likely neutron stars observed in gravitational waves to six. We perform the first inference of the mass distribution of this extragalactic population of neutron stars. In contrast to the bimodal Galactic population detected primarily as radio pulsars, the masses of neutron stars in gravitational-wave binaries are thus far consistent with a uniform distribution, with a greater prevalence of high-mass neutron stars. The maximum mass in the gravitational-wave population agrees with that inferred from the neutron stars in our Galaxy and with expectations from dense matter.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2107.04559