The maximum mass of neutron stars may be higher than expected: an inference from binary systems

Understand

We have analyzed in this work the updated sample of neutron star masses derived from the study of a variety of 96 binary systems containing at least one neutron star using Bayesian methods.

• After updating the multimodality of the distributions found in previous works, we determined the maximum mass implied by the sample using a robust truncation technique, with the result $m_{max} \sim 2.5-2.6 \, M_{\odot}$.
• We have checked that this mass is actually consistent by generating synthetic data and employing a Posterior Predictive Check.
• A comparison with seven published $m_{max}$ values inferred from the remnant of the NS-NS merger GW170817 was performed and the tension between the latter and the obtained $m_{max}$ value quantified.