SPIN-PRECESSION: BREAKING THE BLACK HOLE-NEUTRON STAR DEGENERACY

Journal Article · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/798/1/L17· OSTI ID:22364741

Chatziioannou, Katerina; Cornish, Neil; Klein, Antoine; Yunes, Nicolás ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717 (United States)

Mergers of compact stellar remnants are prime targets for the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave detectors. The gravitational wave signals from these merger events can be used to study the mass and spin distribution of stellar remnants, and provide information about black hole horizons and the material properties of neutron stars. However, it has been suggested that degeneracies in the way that the star's mass and spin are imprinted in the waveforms may make it impossible to distinguish between black holes and neutron stars. Here we show that the precession of the orbital plane due to spin-orbit coupling breaks the mass-spin degeneracy, and allows us to distinguish between standard neutron stars and alternative possibilities, such as black holes or exotic neutron stars with large masses and spins.

• OSTI ID: 22364741
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 798; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
BLACK HOLES
DATA ANALYSIS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTORS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
L-S COUPLING
MASS
NEUTRON STARS
NEUTRONS
PRECESSION
SPIN
WAVE FORMS