Local merger rates of double neutron stars

Understand

The first detection of gravitational waves from a merging double neutron star (DNS) binary implies a much higher rate of DNS coalescences in the local Universe than typically estimated on theoretical grounds.

• The recent study by Chruslinska et al.(2018) shows that apart from being particularly sensitive to the common envelope treatment, DNS merger rates appear rather robust against variations of several factors probed in their study (e.g.
• conservativeness of the mass transfer, angular momentum loss, and natal kicks), unless extreme assumptions are made.
• Confrontation with the improving observational limits may allow to rule out some of the extreme models.