Binary Pulsar J0737-3039: Evidence for a new core collapse and neutron star formation mechanism

Abstract

The binary pulsar J0737-3039 is the only known system having two observable pulsars, thus offering a unique laboratory to test general relativity and explore pulsar physics. Based on the low eccentricity and the position within the galactic plane, Piran & Shaviv (2004, 2005) argued that pulsar B had a non-standard formation scenario with little or no mass ejection. They have also predicted that the system would have a very slow proper motion. Pulsar timing measurements (Kramer et al. 2006; Deller et al. 2009) confirmed this prediction. The recent observations of the alignment between the spin of pulsar A and the binary orbit is also in agreement with this scenario. Detailed simulations of the formation process of pulsar B enable us to show that its progenitor, just before the collapse, was a massive O-Ne-Mg white dwarf surrounded by a tenuous, 0.1-0.16 M_sun, envelope. This envelope was ejected when the white dwarf collapsed to form a neutron star. Pulsar B was born as a slow rotator (spin period ~ 1 s) and a kick received when the pulsar formed changed its spin direction to the current one. This realization sheds light on the angular momentum evolution of the progenitor star, a process which is strongly affected by interaction with the binary companion. The slow proper motion of the system also implies that the system must have undergone a phase of mass transfer in which Star A shed a significant fraction of its mass onto B.

19 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (9)

• Tests of general relativity from timing the double pulsar
• White dwarf spins from low mass stellar evolution models
• The Effect of Orbital Eccentricity on Gravitational Wave Background Radiation from Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Constraints on Natal Kicks in Galactic Double Neutron Star Systems
• Implications of a VLBI Distance to the Double Pulsar J0737-3039A/B
• The Formation of the Double Pulsar PSR J0737-3039A/B
• On the Formation and Progenitor of PSR J0737-3039: New Constraints on the Supernova Explosion Forming Pulsar B
• Constraining white-dwarf kicks in globular clusters
• On the Low Progenitor Mass of the Binary Pulsar J0737-3039B

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Rates of Compact Object Coalescences
• Neutron Star Mergers as sites of r-process Nucleosynthesis and Short Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Formation of Double Neutron Star systems as implied by observations
• Neutrino-driven explosions of ultra-stripped type Ic supernovae generating binary neutron stars
• Natal Kicks and Time Delays in Merging Neutron Star Binaries - Implications for r-process nucleosynthesis in Ultra Faint Dwarfs and in the Milky Way
• FBOTs and AT2018cow following electron-capture collapse of merged white dwarfs
• Evolutionary Channels for the Formation of Double Neutron Stars
• Calibration of neutron star natal kick velocities to isolated pulsar observations
• No velocity-kicks are required to explain large-distance offsets of Ca-rich supernovae and short-GRBs
• Rapidly Rising Optical Transients from the Birth of Binary Neutron Stars
• On the nature of Fast Blue Optical Transients
• A pre-explosion optical transient event from a white dwarf merger with a giant supernova progenitor
• Constraints on Weak Supernova Kicks from Observed Pulsar Velocities
• Bare Collapse, Formation of Neutron Star Binaries and Fast Optical Transients