English

Astrophysical and theoretical physics implications from multimessenger neutron star observations

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2021-05-06 v3 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) recently measured the mass and equatorial radius of the isolated neutron star PSR J0030+0451. We use these measurements to infer the moment of inertia, the quadrupole moment, and the surface eccentricity of an isolated neutron star for the first time, using relations between these quantities that are insensitive to the unknown equation of state of supranuclear matter. We also use these results to forecast the moment of inertia of neutron star A in the double pulsar binary J0737-3039, a quantity anticipated to be directly measured in the coming decade with radio observations. Combining this information with the measurement of the tidal Love number with LIGO/Virgo observations, we propose and implement the first theory-agnostic and equation-of-state-insensitive test of general relativity. Specializing these constraints to a particular modified theory, we find that consistency with general relativity places the most stringent constraint on gravitational parity violation to date, surpassing all other previously reported bounds by seven orders of magnitude and opens the path for future a test of general relativity with multimessenger neutron star observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.01253,
  title  = {Astrophysical and theoretical physics implications from multimessenger neutron star observations},
  author = {Hector O. Silva and A. Miguel Holgado and Alejandro Cárdenas-Avendaño and Nicolás Yunes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.01253},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

12 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables. (v2) Major revision; expanded supplemental material. (v3) Matches version published in Phys. Rev. Lett

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:37:24.561Z