http://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03939
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 \citet{Dominik:2012kk} 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 $0.6-295$ Gpc$^{-3}$yr$^{-1}$ and that of NSBH mergers will be constrained to $0.3-88$ Gpc$^{-3}$yr$^{-1}$ which are tightened by a factor of $\sim 2$ and $\sim4$, respectively, as compared to the previous rates. 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 rate and chirp mass. These constraints on DNS and NSBH merger rates will be further tightened by future detections of BBH mergers by aLIGO.
A. Gupta, K. Arun and B. Sathyaprakash
Tue, 15 Aug 17
21/59
Comments: 5 pages, no figures, 4 tables