Compact binaries and the neutron star/black hole mass gap
Image Caption: The masses of compact objects (black holes/neutron stars) in close binaries are measured by combining high precision optical data with state of the art binary modelling. Our group works on collecting and analysing data from the world's largest telescopes, and on creating the software that is used to interpret these data. The mass measurements from our work are important in constraining the neutron star equation of state and in probing the neutron star/black hole mass gap
Dr. Kennedy's group focuses on precise mass measurements of neutron stars in "spider" systems and black holes in "dormant" systems. To do this, Dr. Kennedy's group work with high precision such as those taken using HiPERCAM (https://vikdhillon.staff.shef.ac.uk/hipercam/) on the Gran Telescopio Canarias, and HAWK-I and the X-SHOOTER spectrograph on ESO's VLT. The most probable binary models that produce these data are then found by performing a high-dimensional optimisation of models generated using the Icarus stellar binary synthesis code (https://github.com/bretonr/Icarus).
| Current Postgraduates | |
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| Sorcha Kennelly | Masters Student |
| Sorcha is comparing Icarus and another code used in analysing compact binaries, Phoebe. Sorcha's work involves ensuring both codes produce the same predicted models given the same input parameters, and that the codes converge to the same solution when presented with the same real world data. She is expected to submit in March 2025. |
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