Implications of Binary Black Hole Detections on the Merger Rates of Double Neutron Stars and Neutron Star–Black Holes

Abstract

We show that the inferred merger rate and chirp masses of binary black holes (BBHs) detected by advanced LIGO (aLIGO) can be used to constrain the rate of double neutron star (DNS) and neutron star -black hole (NSBH) mergers in the universe. We explicitly demonstrate this by considering a set of publicly available population synthesis models of Dominik et al. (2012a) and show that if all the BBH mergers, GW150914, LVT151012, GW151226, and GW170104, observed by aLIGO arise from isolated binary evolution, the predicted DNS merger rate may be constrained to be 2.3−471.0 Gpc −3 yr −1 and that of NSBH mergers will be constrained to 0.2 − 48.5 Gpc −3 yr −1 . The DNS merger rates are not constrained much but the NSBH rates are tightened by a factor of ∼ 4 as compared to their previous rates. Note that these constrained DNS and NSBH rates are extremely model dependent and are compared to the unconstrained values 2.3 − 472.5 Gpc −3 yr −1 and 0.2 − 218 Gpc −3 yr −1 , respectively, using the same models of Dominik et al. (2012a). These rate estimates may have implications for short Gamma Ray Burst progenitor models assuming they are powered (solely) by DNS or NSBH mergers. While these results are based on a set of open access population synthesis models which may not necessarily be the representative ones, the proposed method is very general and can be applied to any number of models thereby yielding more realistic constraints on the DNS and NSBH merger rates from the inferred BBH merger rate and chirp mass.

Formation and Evolution of Binary Neutron Stars: Mergers and Their Host Galaxies

“…where ρ stands for the local density of Milky Way equivalent galaxy (de Mink & Belczynski 2015). According to observations, there are 10 7 galaxies of comparable mass to the Milky Way in the volume of 1Gpc 3 and ρ = 0.01Mpc −3 (e.g., Abadie et al 2010;Gupta et al 2017;Abbott et al 2017g). This conversion is once again confirmed as seen from those tables (see data RMD,0 and RGW).…”

Gravitational waves from supernova mass loss and natal kicks in close binaries

“…natal-kick GW bursts from NSBH binaries will be detectable to larger distances compared to BNSs due to the higher chirp mass. The event rate for NSBH mergers, however, is expected to be lower than that of BNSs (e.g., Mink & Belczynski 2015;Gupta et al 2017;, which implies that the SN event rate for NSBH binaries will also be lower. BBH natal-kick GW bursts would also be detectable to larger distances if BHs receive SN natal kicks with strengths and timescales comparable to NSs.…”

The formation of double compact objects as gravitational wave sources

“…LVT151012, GW151226和GW170104均来自原初双 星 演 化, Gupta等 人 [314] 采 用Dominik等 人 [298] 的 方 法, 给 出DNSs和BH-NS的 并 合 事 件 的 密 度 分 别 为2.3-471.0和0.2-48.5 Gpc −3 yr −1 . 这 一 结 果 虽 然 对DNSs并 合 的 空 间 密 度 范 围 没 有 改 进, 但 大 大 减 小 了 理 论 预 言 的NS-BH并 合 空 间 密 度 的 范 围.…”