The birth mass function of neutron stars

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: You, Zhi-Qiang, Zhu, Xingjiang, Liu, Xiaojin, Müller, Bernhard, Heger, Alexander, Stevenson, Simon, Thrane, Eric, Chen, Zu-Cheng, Sun, Ling, Lasky, Paul, Galloway, Duncan K., Hobbs, George, Manchester, Richard N., Gao, He, Zhu, Zong-Hong
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author You, Zhi-Qiang
Zhu, Xingjiang
Liu, Xiaojin
Müller, Bernhard
Heger, Alexander
Stevenson, Simon
Thrane, Eric
Chen, Zu-Cheng
Sun, Ling
Lasky, Paul
Galloway, Duncan K.
Hobbs, George
Manchester, Richard N.
Gao, He
Zhu, Zong-Hong
author_facet You, Zhi-Qiang
Zhu, Xingjiang
Liu, Xiaojin
Müller, Bernhard
Heger, Alexander
Stevenson, Simon
Thrane, Eric
Chen, Zu-Cheng
Sun, Ling
Lasky, Paul
Galloway, Duncan K.
Hobbs, George
Manchester, Richard N.
Gao, He
Zhu, Zong-Hong
contents The birth mass function of neutron stars encodes rich information about supernova explosions, double star evolution, and properties of matter under extreme conditions. To date, it has remained poorly constrained by observations, however. Applying probabilistic corrections to account for mass accreted by recycled pulsars in binary systems to mass measurements of 90 neutron stars, we find that the birth masses of neutron stars can be described by a unimodal distribution that smoothly turns on at $1.1 M_{\odot}$, peaks at $1.27 M_{\odot}$, before declining as a steep power law. Such a ``turn-on" power-law distribution is strongly favoured against the widely-adopted empirical double-Gaussian model at the $3 σ$ level. The power-law shape may be inherited from the initial mass function of massive stars, but the relative dearth of massive neutron stars implies that single stars with initial masses greater than $\approx 18 M_{\odot}$ do not form neutron stars, in agreement with the absence of massive red supergiant progenitors to supernovae.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_05524
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The birth mass function of neutron stars
You, Zhi-Qiang
Zhu, Xingjiang
Liu, Xiaojin
Müller, Bernhard
Heger, Alexander
Stevenson, Simon
Thrane, Eric
Chen, Zu-Cheng
Sun, Ling
Lasky, Paul
Galloway, Duncan K.
Hobbs, George
Manchester, Richard N.
Gao, He
Zhu, Zong-Hong
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
The birth mass function of neutron stars encodes rich information about supernova explosions, double star evolution, and properties of matter under extreme conditions. To date, it has remained poorly constrained by observations, however. Applying probabilistic corrections to account for mass accreted by recycled pulsars in binary systems to mass measurements of 90 neutron stars, we find that the birth masses of neutron stars can be described by a unimodal distribution that smoothly turns on at $1.1 M_{\odot}$, peaks at $1.27 M_{\odot}$, before declining as a steep power law. Such a ``turn-on" power-law distribution is strongly favoured against the widely-adopted empirical double-Gaussian model at the $3 σ$ level. The power-law shape may be inherited from the initial mass function of massive stars, but the relative dearth of massive neutron stars implies that single stars with initial masses greater than $\approx 18 M_{\odot}$ do not form neutron stars, in agreement with the absence of massive red supergiant progenitors to supernovae.
title The birth mass function of neutron stars
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.05524