Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 16, 2025

Setting Limits on Supersymmetry Using Simplified Models
Published on: November 15, 2013
Combining Electromagnetic and Gravitational-Wave Constraints on Neutron-Star Masses and Radii
Mohammad Al-Mamun1, Andrew W Steiner1,2, Joonas Nättilä3,4
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA.
Abstract:
We perform a joint Bayesian inference of neutron-star mass and radius constraints based on GW170817, observations of quiescent low-mass x-ray binaries (QLMXBs), photospheric radius expansion x-ray bursting sources, and x-ray timing observations of J0030+0451. With this dataset, the form of the prior distribution still has an impact on the posterior mass-radius curves and equation of state (EOS), but this impact is smaller than recently obtained when considering QLMXBs alone. We analyze the consistency of the electromagnetic data by including an "intrinsic scattering" contribution to the uncertainties, and find only a slight broadening of the posteriors. This suggests that the gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations of neutron-star structure are providing a consistent picture of the neutron-star mass-radius curve and the EOS.
More Related Videos
11:27Studying Soft-matter and Biological Systems over a Wide Length-scale from Nanometer and Micrometer Sizes at the Small-angle Neutron Diffractometer KWS-2
Published on: December 8, 2016
10:02Neutron Spin Echo Spectroscopy as a Unique Probe for Lipid Membrane Dynamics and Membrane-Protein Interactions
Published on: May 27, 2021
Related Concept Videos
Gravitation Between Spherically Symmetric Masses
Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape...
Reduced Mass Coordinates: Isolated Two-body Problem
Atomic Radii and Effective Nuclear Charge
Electromagnetic Wave Equation
However, although electric and magnetic fields were first introduced as mathematical constructs to simplify the description of mutual forces between charges, a natural question emerges from Maxwell's equations:...
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...