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The birth mass function of neutron stars

Authors :
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.
Bailes, Matthew
Hobbs, George
Manchester, Richard N.
Gao, He
Zhu, Zong-Hong
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

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 $\mathbf{\unit[1.1]{\mathrm{M}_{\odot}}}$, peaks at $\mathbf{\approx \unit[1.27]{\mathrm{M}_{\odot}}}$, 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 $\mathbf{3\sigma}$ 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 $\mathbf{\approx \unit[18]{\mathrm{M}_{\odot}}}$ do not form neutron stars, in agreement with the absence of massive red supergiant progenitors to supernovae.<br />Comment: 57 pages, 14 figures, 4 tables

Details

Database :
arXiv
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.2412.05524
Document Type :
Working Paper