Updated estimates of post-merger gravitational wave energy released in GW170817 and the maximum neutron star mass
Abstract
In this work, benefiting from the increased sample of neutron stars with measured masses and radii as well as the incorporation of the chiral effective field theory and perturbative QCD constraints, the tidal parameter κ2T is constrained to be 78+17−11 (68.3% credible interval, mainly adopted in this work unless mentioned specifically) for the binary neutron stars involved in GW170817. Such a κ2T is in favor of strong gravitational wave radiation in the post-merger phase and the corresponding energy is estimated to be EGW,p ≃ 0.051+0.022−0.017 M⊙ c2. Assuming the remnant from binary neutron star merger is a supramassive neutron star, as suggested by the modeling of the electromagnetic counterparts of GW170817, we examine the maximum mass of nonrotating neutron stars (MTOV) while accounting for the uncertainty in the remnant's lifetime (tc). Our results show that MTOV varies from 2.09+0.11−0.09 M⊙ for tc=0.1 s to 2.18+0.10−0.09 M⊙ for tc=1 s. This result is consistent with that independently inferred from the re-construction of the equation of state of neutron star matter, i.e., MTOV,exc=2.16+0.10−0.07M⊙, particularly if the very massive neutron stars with masses measured indirectly have been removed in constructing the prior distribution of MTOV. The consistency of the maximum mass of nonrotating neutron stars found in different approaches suggests a reasonable understanding of this key parameter for dense-matter physics.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{chen2026updated,
title = {{Updated estimates of post-merger gravitational wave energy released in GW170817 and the maximum neutron star mass}},
author = {Yong Chen and Bo Gao and Yong-Jia Huang and Shao-Peng Tang and Yi-Zhong Fan},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.17936},
eprint = {2609.17936},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17936},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Updated estimates of post-merger gravitational wave energy released in GW170817 and the maximum neutron star mass
AU - Yong Chen
AU - Bo Gao
AU - Yong-Jia Huang
AU - Shao-Peng Tang
AU - Yi-Zhong Fan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.17936
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17936
AB - In this work, benefiting from the increased sample of neutron stars with measured masses and radii as well as the incorporation of the chiral effective field theory and perturbative QCD constraints, the tidal parameter κ_2^T is constrained to be 78^+17_−11 (68.3% credible interval, mainly adopted in this work unless mentioned specifically) for the binary neutron stars involved in GW170817. Such a κ_2^T is in favor of strong gravitational wave radiation in the post-merger phase and the corresponding energy is estimated to be E_GW,p ≃ 0.051^+0.022_−0.017 M_⊙ c^2. Assuming the remnant from binary neutron star merger is a supramassive neutron star, as suggested by the modeling of the electromagnetic counterparts of GW170817, we examine the maximum mass of nonrotating neutron stars (M_TOV) while accounting for the uncertainty in the remnant's lifetime (t_c). Our results show that M_TOV varies from 2.09^+0.11_−0.09 M_⊙ for t_c=0.1 s to 2.18^+0.10_−0.09 M_⊙ for t_c=1 s. This result is consistent with that independently inferred from the re-construction of the equation of state of neutron star matter, i.e., M_TOV,exc=2.16^+0.10_−0.07M_⊙, particularly if the very massive neutron stars with masses measured indirectly have been removed in constructing the prior distribution of M_TOV. The consistency of the maximum mass of nonrotating neutron stars found in different approaches suggests a reasonable understanding of this key parameter for dense-matter physics.
ER -