Ilya Mandel edited prior constraints.tex  almost 9 years ago

Commit id: 3ce4eb3a4d03d7872b537d0c487c2f2a0b0a9da1

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By discarding posterior samples above a given spin, we We  can effectively make investigate the impact of  stronger prior assumptions about regarding  the maximum spin of NSs to see how on  mass estimates are affected. by discarding posterior samples above a given spin.  Figure \ref{fig:restricted_priors} shows the cumulative distribution of lower $90\%$ bounds on the estimates of $m_2$ of among  the 250 simulated sources for spin priors of $\chi_{1,~2} \leq \{1, 0.7, 0.4, 0\}$. $\chi_{1,~2}<1$ and $\chi_{1,~2}=0$ correspond to the spinning and non-spinning analyses looked at thus far. described above.  $\chi<0.7$ is consistent with the NSs remaining intact for most proposed non-exotic EOSs. $\chi<0.4$ is consistent with the spin of observed, isolated NSs to date. From these PDFs, it is clear that \emph{very} strong prior assumptions are required to have measurable effects on mass estimates. Assuming NSs to be spinning with $\chi_{1,~2}\leq 0.4$ a priori only constrains masses by an extra few percent compared to allowing them to have $\chi_{1,~2} \leq 1$.