The masses of neutron stars

Understand

We present in this article an overview of the problem of neutron star masses.

• After a brief appraisal of the methods employed to determine the masses of neutron stars in binary systems, the existing sample of measured masses is presented, with a highlight on some very well-determined cases.
• We discuss the analysis made to uncover the underlying distribution and a few robust results that stand out from them.
• The issues related to some particular groups of neutron stars originated from different channels of stellar evolution are shown.