Insights into the Milky Way pulsar--black hole population using radio and gravitational wave observations

Understand

The detection of two NS--BH mergers by LIGO-Virgo provided the first direct confirmation of the existence of this type of system in the Universe.

• These detections also imply the existence of pulsar--black hole (PSR--BH) systems.
• In this analysis, we use the non-detection of any PSR--BH systems in current radio surveys to estimate a 95\% upper limit of $\sim$150 PSR--BH binary systems that are beaming towards the Earth in the Milky Way.
• This corresponds to a 95\% upper limit of $\mathcal{R}_{\rm LIGO} = 7.6$~yr$^{-1}$ on the merger detection rate for the LIGO-Virgo network scaled to a range distance of 100~Mpc, which is consistent with the rates derived by LIGO-Virgo.