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posted by martyb on Thursday June 25 2020, @01:40AM   Printer-friendly

Black hole or neutron star?

When the most massive stars die, they collapse under their own gravity and leave behind black holes; when stars that are a bit less massive than this die, they explode and leave behind dense, dead remnants of stars called neutron stars. For decades, astronomers have been puzzled by a gap in mass that lies between neutron stars and black holes: the heaviest known neutron star is no more than 2.5 times the mass of our sun, or 2.5 solar masses, and the lightest known black hole is about 5 solar masses. The question remained: Does anything lie in this so-called mass gap?

Now, in a new study from the National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the European Virgo detector, scientists have announced the discovery of an object of 2.6 solar masses, placing it firmly in the mass gap. The object was found on Aug. 14, 2019, as it merged with a black hole of 23 solar masses, generating a splash of gravitational waves detected back on Earth by LIGO and Virgo. A paper about the detection is available in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"We've been waiting decades to solve this mystery," said Vicky Kalogera, a professor at Northwestern University. "We don't know if this object is the heaviest known neutron star, or the lightest known black hole, but either way it breaks a record."

More details: The Curious Case of GW190814: The Coalescence of a Stellar-Mass Black Hole and a Mystery Compact Object

The lighter component of the GW190814 merger could have been an intermediate object such as a quark star or Q-star.

Also at BBC.

Journal References:
GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 M Black Hole with a 2.6 M Compact Object (open, DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab960f) (DX)

GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 Solar Mass Black Hole with a 2.6 Solar Mass Compact Object - IOPscience, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab960f)

LIGO-P190814-v10: GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 Msun Black Hole with a 2.6 Msun Compact Object, (DOI: https://dcc.ligo.org/P190814/public)


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  • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Thursday June 25 2020, @11:49AM (4 children)

    by stormwyrm (717) on Thursday June 25 2020, @11:49AM (#1012358) Journal

    So is this a quark star or something like that? Basically a stellar remnant that is made up entirely of quark matter, making it look sort of like a gigantic hadron held together by gravity rather than the strong interaction? Sort of the way a neutron star is kinda like a gigantic atomic nucleus that is held together by gravity rather than the nuclear force. It would be really interesting to see what it might actually be like.

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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday June 25 2020, @12:46PM (1 child)

    by TheRaven (270) on Thursday June 25 2020, @12:46PM (#1012371) Journal

    It would be really interesting to see what it might actually be like.

    ... from very, very far away.

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    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:04PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:04PM (#1012400) Journal

      And with extreme γ-ray imaging.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:39PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:39PM (#1012418)

    > It would be really interesting to see what it might actually be like.

    Round. Uniform. Kind of boring, like a neutron star or a black hole but intermediate.

    • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Friday June 26 2020, @05:33AM

      by stormwyrm (717) on Friday June 26 2020, @05:33AM (#1012792) Journal

      Probably wouldn't be boring at all. The quantum field theory of the strong interaction (quantum chromodynamics, or QCD) is difficult to verify experimentally since the energies required are very high, with even the LHC only barely able to reach the lower range of energies needed. Observations of an actual quark star might be able to verify some of the predictions of QCD, and potentially even find places where the theory doesn't quite fit nature, and so be a stepping stone towards developing still better theories. Since a quark star has even higher gravity than a neutron star but less than a black hole, it might be easier for testing general relativity and candidate quantum theories of gravity.

      It would only be boring if you don't really care about unlocking the secrets of the universe.

      --
      Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.