Constraining the Dense Matter Equation of State with Joint Analysis of NICER and LIGO/Virgo Measurements

The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer collaboration recently published a joint estimate of the mass and the radius of PSR J0030+0451, derived via X-ray pulse-profile modeling. Raaijmakers et al. explored the implications of this measurement for the dense matter equation of state (EOS) using two parameterizations of the high-density EOS: a piecewise-polytropic model, and a model based on the speed of sound in neutron stars (NSs). In this work we obtain further constraints on the EOS following this approach, but we also include information about the tidal deformability of NSs from the gravitational wave signal of the compact binary merger GW170817. We compare the constraints on the EOS to those set by the recent measurement of a 2.14 M⊙ pulsar, included as a likelihood function approximated by a Gaussian, and find a small increase in information gain. To show the flexibility of our method, we also explore the possibility that GW170817 was a NS–black hole merger, which yields weaker constraints on the EOS.