1998/03/22 by S. E. Thorsett, Deepto Chakrabarty · 29 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/306742
published as Astrophys.J. 512 (1999) 288 · 35 pages, 5 figures, submitted to the Astrophys. J. Also available at http://pulsar.princeton.edu/pulsar/publications.shtml
arxiv created 1998/03/22 · openalex publication_date 1999/02/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
There are now about 50 known radio pulsars in binary systems, including at least five in double neutron star binaries. In some cases, the stellar masses can be directly determined from measurements of relativistic orbital effects. In others, only an indirect or statistical estimate of the masses is possible. We review the general problem of mass measurement in radio pulsar binaries and critically discuss all current estimates of the masses of radio pulsars and their companions. We find that significant constraints exist on the masses of 21 radio pulsars and on five neutron star companions of radio pulsars. All the measurements are consistent with a remarkably narrow underlying Gaussian mass distribution, m =1.35±0.04 M . There is no evidence that extensive mass accretion (Δ m ≳0.1 M ) has occurred in these systems. We also show that the observed inclinations of millisecond pulsar binaries are consistent with a random distribution, and thus find no evidence for either alignment or counteralignment of millisecond pulsar magnetic fields.