Neutron stars versus black holes: probing the mass gap with LIGO/Virgo

Tyson B. Littenberg, Benjamin Farr, Scott Coughlin, Vicky Kalogera, Daniel E. Holz

Published 2015-03-11Version 1

The inspirals and mergers of binary systems comprised of black holes (BHs) and/or neutron stars (NSs) are expected to be abundant sources for ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. We assess the capabilities of Advanced LIGO and Virgo to measure component masses using inspiral waveform models which include spin-precession effects by studying a large ensemble of plausible GW sources. We make quantitative predictions for how well LIGO and Virgo will be able to distinguish between black holes and neutron stars and appraise the prospect of using LIGO/Virgo observations to definitively confirm, or reject, the existence of a putative "mass gap" between NSs ($m\leq3\ M_\odot$) and BHs ($m\geq 5\ M_\odot$). We find sources with the smaller mass component satisfying $m_2 \lesssim1.5\ M_\odot$ to be unambiguously identified as containing at least one NS, while systems with $m_2\gtrsim6\ M_\odot$ will be confirmed binary BHs. However, binary BHs with $m_2<5\ M_\odot$ (i.e., in the gap) cannot be distinguished from NSBH binaries. High-mass NSs ($2<m<3$ $M_\odot$) are often consistent with low-mass BH ($m<5\ M_\odot$), posing a challenge for determining the maximum NS mass from LIGO/Virgo observations alone. Individual sources will seldom be measured well enough to confirm objects in the mass gap and statistical inferences drawn from the detected population will be strongly dependent on the underlying distribution. If nature happens to provide a mass distribution with the populations relatively cleanly separated in chirp mass space, as some population synthesis models suggest, then NSs and BHs are more easily distinguishable.