2017/11/01 by Milton Ruiz, Stuart L. Shapiro, Antonios Tsokaros · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.97.021501
published as Phys. Rev. D 97, 021501 (2018) · 6 pages, 1 figure. Matches published version
arxiv published 2017/11/01 · arxiv created 2018/05/04 · arxiv updated 2018/05/04
Recent numerical simulations in general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) provide useful constraints for the interpretation of the GW170817 discovery. Combining the observed data with these simulations leads to a bound on the maximum mass of a cold, spherical neutron star (the TOV limit): M\rm max\rm sph\lesssim 2.74/β, where β is the ratio of the maximum mass of a uniformly rotating neutron star (the supramassive limit) over the maximum mass of a nonrotating star. Causality arguments allow β to be as high as 1.27, while most realistic candidate equations of state predict β to be closer to 1.2, yielding M\rm max\rm sph in the range 2.16-2.28 M_\odot. A minimal set of assumptions based on these simulations distinguishes this analysis from previous ones, but leads to a similar estimate. There are caveats, however, and they are enumerated and discussed. The caveats can be removed by further simulations and analysis to firm up the basic argument.