The Mass Distribution of Neutron Stars in Gravitational-wave Binaries
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Jocelyn Read; Philippe Landry
- Source
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 921:L25
- Subject
- Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Population
FOS: Physical sciences
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Pulsar
0103 physical sciences
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Neutron
education
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
Physics
education.field_of_study
Mass distribution
010308 nuclear & particles physics
Gravitational wave
Astronomy and Astrophysics
LIGO
Galaxy
Neutron star
Space and Planetary Science
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- Language
- ISSN
- 2041-8213
2041-8205
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.
Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures; this version accepted for publication in ApJL