No Arabic abstract
It is shown that a mechanism of PBH formation from high-baryon bubbles with log-normal mass spectrum naturally leads to the central mass of the PBH distribution close to ten solar masses independently of the model details. This result is in good agreement with observations.
This is a very informal report that gives further details on the evidence for a bubble universe based on an anomaly in the angular distribution of quasar magnitudes that was presented in a short paper in arXiv:1202.4433. This report addresses some concerns of two reviewers. It is meant to be read in conjunction with 1202.4433. There is very little overlap between the two articles. This extended discussion is, by necessity, somewhat more technical in nature. I am grateful for the reviewers comments that forced me to understand these issues more thoroughly.
By assuming the formation of a black hole soon after the merger event of GW170817, Shibata et al. updated the constraints on the maximum mass ($M_textrm{max}$) of a stable neutron star within $lesssim$ 2.3 $M_{odot}$, but there is no solid evidence to rule out $M_textrm{max}>2.3~M_{odot}$ from the point of both microphysical and astrophysical views. In order to explain massive pulsars, it is naturally expected that the equation of state (EOS) would become stiffer beyond a specific density. In this paper, we consider the possibility of EOSs with $M_textrm{max}>2.3~M_{odot}$, investigating the stiffness and the transition density in a polytropic model. Two kinds of neutron stars are considered, i.e., normal neutron stars (the density vanishes on gravity-bound surface) and strange stars (a sharp density discontinuity on self-bound surface). The polytropic model has only two parameter inputs in both cases: ($rho_{rm t}$, $gamma$) for gravity-bound objects, while ($rho_{rm s}$, $gamma$) for self-bound ones, with $rho_{rm t}$ the transition density, $rho_{rm s}$ the surface density and $gamma$ the polytropic exponent. In the matter of $M_textrm{max}>2.3~M_{odot}$, it is found that the smallest $rho_{rm t}$ and $gamma$ should be $sim 0.50~rho_0$ and $sim 2.65$ for normal neutron stars, respectively, whereas for strange star, we have $gamma > 1.40$ if $rho_{rm s} > 1.0~rho_0$ and $rho_{rm s} < 1.58~rho_0$ if $gamma <2.0$ ($rho_0$ is the nuclear saturation density). These parametric results could guide further research of the real EOS with any foundation of microphysics if a pulsar mass higher than $2.3~M_{odot}$ is measured in the future. We also derive rough results of common neutron star radius range, which is $9.8~rm{km} < R_{1.4} < 13.8~rm{km}$ for normal neutron stars and $10.5~rm{km} < R_{1.4} < 12.5~rm{km}$ for strange stars.
On May 21, 2019 at 03:02:29 UTC Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo observed a short duration gravitational-wave signal, GW190521, with a three-detector network signal-to-noise ratio of 14.7, and an estimated false-alarm rate of 1 in 4900 yr using a search sensitive to generic transients. If GW190521 is from a quasicircular binary inspiral, then the detected signal is consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses of $85^{+21}_{-14} M_{odot}$ and $66^{+17}_{-18} M_{odot}$ (90 % credible intervals). We infer that the primary black hole mass lies within the gap produced by (pulsational) pair-instability supernova processes, and has only a 0.32 % probability of being below $65 M_{odot}$. We calculate the mass of the remnant to be $142^{+28}_{-16} M_{odot}$, which can be considered an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH). The luminosity distance of the source is $5.3^{+2.4}_{-2.6}$ Gpc, corresponding to a redshift of $0.82^{+0.28}_{-0.34}$. The inferred rate of mergers similar to GW190521 is $0.13^{+0.30}_{-0.11},mathrm{Gpc}^{-3},mathrm{yr}^{-1}$.
Gravitational microlensing is one of the few means of finding primordial black holes (PBHs), if they exist. Recent LIGO detections of 30 Msun black holes have re-invigorated the search for PBHs in the 10-100 Msun mass regime. Unfortunately, individual PBH microlensing events cannot easily be distinguished from stellar lensing events from photometry alone. However, the distribution of microlensing timescales (tE, the Einstein radius crossing time) can be analyzed in a statistical sense using models of the Milky Way with and without PBHs. While previous works have presented both theoretical models and observational constrains for PBHs (e.g. Calcino et al. 2018; Niikura et al. 2019), surprisingly, they rarely show the observed quantity -- the tE distribution -- for different abundances of PBHs relative to the total dark matter mass (fPBH). We present a simple calculation of how the tE distribution changes between models with and without PBHs.
Identifying planets around O-type and B-type stars is inherently difficult; the most massive known planet host has a mass of only about $3M_{odot}$. However, planetary systems which survive the transformation of their host stars into white dwarfs can be detected via photospheric trace metals, circumstellar dusty and gaseous discs, and transits of planetary debris crossing our line-of-sight. These signatures offer the potential to explore the efficiency of planet formation for host stars with masses up to the core-collapse boundary at $approx 8M_{odot}$, a mass regime rarely investigated in planet formation theory. Here, we establish limits on where both major and minor planets must reside around $approx 6M_{odot}-8M_{odot}$ stars in order to survive into the white dwarf phase. For this mass range, we find that intact terrestrial or giant planets need to leave the main sequence beyond approximate minimum star-planet separations of respectively about 3 and 6 au. In these systems, rubble pile minor planets of radii 10, 1.0, and 0.1 km would have been shorn apart by giant branch radiative YORP spin-up if they formed and remained within, respectively, tens, hundreds and thousands of au. These boundary values would help distinguish the nature of the progenitor of metal-pollution in white dwarf atmospheres. We find that planet formation around the highest mass white dwarf progenitors may be feasible, and hence encourage both dedicated planet formation investigations for these systems and spectroscopic analyses of the highest mass white dwarfs.