2004/09/29 by Tsvi Piran, Nir J. Shaviv · 3 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.94.051102
published as Phys.Rev.Lett.94:051102,2005 · 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PRL
arxiv created 2004/09/29 · openalex publication_date 2005/02/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Evolutionary scenarios suggest that the progenitor of the new binary pulsar J0737-3039B was a He star with M>(2.1--2.3)M_\ensuremath\bigodot. We show that this case implies that the binary must have a large (>120 km/s) center of mass velocity. However, the location, \ensuremath∼50 pc from the Galactic plane, suggests that the system has, at high likelihood, a significantly smaller center of mass velocity and a progenitor more massive than 2.1M_\ensuremath\bigodot is ruled out (at 97% C.L.). A progenitor mass around 1.45M_\ensuremath\bigodot, involving a new previously unseen gravitational collapse, is kinematically favored. The low mass progenitor is consistent with the recent scintillation based velocity measurement of 66\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi15 km/s and rules out the high mass solution at 99% C.L. Conversely, if the unlikely higher mass solution is the true one we should increase the estimated rate of neutron star mergers by a factor of at least 2.