Using radioactivities to improve the search for nearby radio-quiet neutron stars

TL;DR

This paper proposes using radioactivities from supernova remnants to enhance the search for young, radio-quiet neutron stars, aiding gravitational wave source localization and neutron star equation of state constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel strategy to identify young radio-quiet neutron stars by detecting radioactivities from supernova events, which is a new approach in the field.

Findings

Radioactivities with ~1 Myr half-lives can indicate supernova events.

Using radioactivities can help locate young neutron stars for gravitational wave studies.

The strategy offers advantages in identifying elusive radio-quiet neutron stars.

Abstract

Neutron stars (NS) and black holes (BH) are sources of gravitational waves (GW) and the investigation of young isolated radio-quiet NS can in principle lead to constraints of the equation of state (EoS). The GW signal of merging NSs critically depends on the EoS. However, unlike radio pulsars young isolated radio-quiet neutron stars are hard to detect and only seven of them are known so far. Furthermore, for GW projects it is necessary to confine regions in the sky where and of which quantity sources of GW can be expected. We suggest strategies for the search for young isolated radio-quiet NSs. One of the strategies is to look for radioactivities which are formed during a supernova (SN) event and are detectable due to their decay. Radioactivities with half lives of ~1 Myr can indicate such an event while other remnants like nebulae only remain observable for a few kyrs. Here we give a brief overview of our strategies and discuss advantages and disadvantages