Astronomers of the University of California in Santa Cruz (USA) explained how heavy neutron stars arise. This allows you to reveal the riddle of the unusual mass of two neutron stars, whose merger was recorded in 2019. This is reported in an article published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters magazine.
It is known that in the Milky Way there are double neutron stars, one of the components of which are a pulsar. At the same time, pulsar masses are identical, that is, there are no heavy neutron stars among them. However, LIGO collaboration found gravitational waves, which appeared when merging a pair of heavy neutron stars, which suggests that such double stars must meet everywhere. So far, scientists could not explain why then heavy neutron stars are not observed in Pulsary populations.
Researchers analyzed supernovae arising in double systems and leading to the appearance of compact objects, such as two neutron stars, or a pair of neutron star-black hole. Scientists simulated the explosion of massive stars, which were deprived of the hydrogen shell due to the interaction with the companion. It turned out that when such a star turns into a supernova, some of the external layers are quickly thrown out of the system, but the internal first is thrown away, and then fall back to the formed compact object.
Star with a mass of ten suns, if the energy of the explosion is small, forms a black hole; If the energy is big, the star will form a neutron star. These results not only explain the formation of double heavy neutron stars systems, but also predict the formation of double neutron star systems and light black holes.