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arXiv · 2606.25186

Causality alone bounds the maximum radius difference between different-mass neutron stars

Aleksi Kurkela·Tuhin Malik
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Abstract

We investigate how the assumption of a common causal equation of state (EoS) correlates the radii of neutron stars at different masses and thereby reduces the uncertainties inferred from independent observations. We show that causality, anchored only to the chiral effective field theory ($\chi$EFT) EoS near saturation density, places a closed-form upper bound on the radius difference, $R(2.0\,M_\odot)\le 1.16\,R(1.4\,M_\odot)-1.1\,$km. The bound is saturated exactly by a one-parameter family of EoSs that we construct analytically. Imposing this prior-independent causal ceiling on the independent NICER posteriors of PSR J0437-4715, PSR J0614-3329, and PSR J0740+6620 retains only 7.5% of their joint product distribution and removes the large-radius tail of the PSR J0740+6620 posterior. Unlike full EoS-informed inferences, our construction cleanly isolates the consequences of the generic physical assumptions of a common causal EoS from those associated with a particular choice of EoS prior, providing a transparent benchmark for interpreting neutron-star observations.

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Aleksi Kurkela, Tuhin Malik. 2026-06-23. Causality alone bounds the maximum radius difference between different-mass neutron stars. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.25186

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