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The cosmic merger rate of neutron stars and black holes

3 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.

3 Pith papers citing it
abstract

Six gravitational wave detections have been reported so far, providing crucial insights on the merger rate of double compact objects. We investigate the cosmic merger rate of double neutron stars (DNSs), neutron star-black hole binaries (NSBHs) and black hole binaries (BHBs) by means of population-synthesis simulations coupled with the Illustris cosmological simulation. We have performed six different simulations, considering different assumptions for the efficiency of common envelope (CE) ejection and exploring two distributions for the supernova (SN) kicks. The current BHB merger rate derived from our simulations spans from $\sim{}150$ to $\sim{}240$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$ and is only mildly dependent on CE efficiency. In contrast, the current merger rates of DNSs (ranging from $\sim{}20$ to $\sim{}600$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$) and NSBHs (ranging from $\sim{}10$ to $\sim{}100$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$) strongly depend on the assumptions on CE and natal kicks. The merger rate of DNSs is consistent with the one inferred from the detection of GW170817 only if a high efficiency of CE ejection and low SN kicks (drawn from a Maxwellian distribution with one dimensional root mean square $\sigma{}=15$ km s$^{-1}$) are assumed.

fields

astro-ph.HE 3

years

2026 3

verdicts

UNVERDICTED 3

representative citing papers

Can current models predict the local black hole merger rate?

astro-ph.HE · 2026-06-01 · unverdicted · novelty 3.0

Theoretical predictions for local BBH merger rates exceed observations by a factor >10 under conservative SFRD and metallicity assumptions, indicating need for revisions in stellar evolution.

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