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LIGO has detected several NSNS and NSBH merger events. However, it’s difficult to tell their identities directly unless the neutron stars are very light in an NSNS merger (such as GW170817) or the black hole is small and spinning very fast in an NSBH merger. If the binary neutron stars are too massive as is itthe case of GW190425, they will collapse into a black hole almost immediately upon contact, leaving no accretion disk or hypermassive neutron star intermediate. Similarly, if the black hole in an NSBH merger is not small or fast spinning, the neutron star will plunge into the black hole directly instead of being torn apart. In both cases the gravitational wave and EM signals are not much different from BHBH mergers of identical masses and the identity of companions were inferred based on the theoretical upper bound of neutron star masses (the TOV limit). So what “smoking guns” in the GW signals can be useful in telling the identity of a compact object whose mass is close to the TOV limit? If we can tell their identities directly from their GW signatures, we can put a tighter constraint on the upper bound of neutron star masses and the lower bound of black hole masses, and find out whether there is an overlap between them.

LIGO has detected several NSNS and NSBH merger events. However, it’s difficult to tell their identities directly unless the neutron stars are very light in an NSNS merger (such as GW170817) or the black hole is small and spinning very fast in an NSBH merger. If the binary neutron stars are too massive as is it case of GW190425, they will collapse into a black hole almost immediately upon contact, leaving no accretion disk or hypermassive neutron star. Similarly, if the black hole in an NSBH merger is not small or fast spinning, the neutron star will plunge into the black hole directly instead of being torn apart. In both cases the gravitational wave and EM signals are not much different from BHBH mergers of identical masses and the identity of companions were inferred based on the theoretical upper bound of neutron star masses (the TOV limit). So what “smoking guns” in the GW signals can be useful in telling the identity of a compact object whose mass is close to the TOV limit? If we can tell their identities directly from their GW signatures, we can put a tighter constraint on the upper bound of neutron star masses and the lower bound of black hole masses, and find out whether there is an overlap between them.

LIGO has detected several NSNS and NSBH merger events. However, it’s difficult to tell their identities directly unless the neutron stars are very light in an NSNS merger (such as GW170817) or the black hole is small and spinning very fast in an NSBH merger. If the binary neutron stars are too massive as is the case of GW190425, they will collapse into a black hole almost immediately upon contact, leaving no accretion disk or hypermassive neutron star intermediate. Similarly, if the black hole in an NSBH merger is not small or fast spinning, the neutron star will plunge into the black hole directly instead of being torn apart. In both cases the gravitational wave and EM signals are not much different from BHBH mergers of identical masses and the identity of companions were inferred based on the theoretical upper bound of neutron star masses (the TOV limit). So what “smoking guns” in the GW signals can be useful in telling the identity of a compact object whose mass is close to the TOV limit? If we can tell their identities directly from their GW signatures, we can put a tighter constraint on the upper bound of neutron star masses and the lower bound of black hole masses, and find out whether there is an overlap between them.

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哲煜黄
哲煜黄
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Are there any subtle differences in the gravitational waves emitted from NSNS, NSBH and BHBH of identical masses?

LIGO has detected several NSNS and NSBH merger events. However, it’s difficult to tell their identities directly unless the neutron stars are very light in an NSNS merger (such as GW170817) or the black hole is small and spinning very fast in an NSBH merger. If the binary neutron stars are too massive as is it case of GW190425, they will collapse into a black hole almost immediately upon contact, leaving no accretion disk or hypermassive neutron star. Similarly, if the black hole in an NSBH merger is not small or fast spinning, the neutron star will plunge into the black hole directly instead of being torn apart. In both cases the gravitational wave and EM signals are not much different from BHBH mergers of identical masses and the identity of companions were inferred based on the theoretical upper bound of neutron star masses (the TOV limit). So what “smoking guns” in the GW signals can be useful in telling the identity of a compact object whose mass is close to the TOV limit? If we can tell their identities directly from their GW signatures, we can put a tighter constraint on the upper bound of neutron star masses and the lower bound of black hole masses, and find out whether there is an overlap between them.