Getting Its Kicks: A VLBA Parallax for the Hyperfast Pulsar B1508+55

By S. Chatterjee, W. Vlemmings, Walter Brisken, T. Lazio, Jim Cordes, W. Goss, S. Thorsett, E. Fomalont, Andrew G. Lyne, M. Nrao and 7 more. 2005

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The highest velocity neutron stars establish stringent constraints on natal kicks, asymmetries in supernova core collapse, and the evolution of close binary systems. Here we present the first results of a long-term pulsar astrometry program using the VLBA. We measure a proper motion and parallax for the pulsar B1508+55, leading to model-independent estimates of its distance (2.37 kpc) and transverse velocity (1083 km s-1), the highest velocity directly measured for a neutron star. We trace the pulsar back from its present Galactic latitude of 52.°3 to a birth site in the Galactic plane near the Cyg OB associations, and find that it will inevitably escape the Galaxy. Binary disruption alone is insufficient to impart the required birth velocity, and a natal kick is indicated. A composite scenario including a large kick along with binary disruption can plausibly account for the high velocity.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6e8fb54469399d843189b15a16cf561622d7e237

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Citations in the corpus

Supernova simulations from a 3D progenitor model - Impact of perturbations and evolution of explosion properties (2017, background): “Even if the kick were to increase at the current rate for another 2 s, model s18-3D would still be within the bounds of the observed distribution that extends to &1000 km s−1 (Chatterjee et al. 2005).”
Formation of Double Neutron Star Systems (2017, background): “…500 km s−1) in observations of young radio pulsars (Gott et al. 1970; Cordes et al. 1993; Lyne & Lorimer 1994; Kaspi et al. 1996; Hobbs et al. 2005; Chatterjee et al. 2005) it also seems evident that the second SN explosion forming DNS systems involves, on average, significantly smaller kicks…”
Three-dimensional simulations of neutrino-driven core-collapse supernovae from low-mass single and binary star progenitors (2018, background): “It is remarkable that the extrapolated value for the model of Müller et al. (2017a) would place it just around the highest observed kick velocities (Cordes et al. 1993; Chatterjee et al. 2005; Tomsick et al. 2012; Tauris 2015).”
A Nearby Repeating Fast Radio Burst in the Direction of M81 (2021, background): “The fastest known runaway OB stars and young pulsars both have space velocities of ∼1000 km s−1 (Brown 2015; Chatterjee et al. 2005; Du et al. 2018), which would require ∼108 yr to traverse 50–200 kpc.”
Neutron Star Kicks by the Gravitational Tug-boat Mechanism in Asymmetric Supernova Explosions: Progenitor and Explosion Dependence (2016, background): “…breakup velocities of close double-star systems) and by the orbital parameters and spin orientations of NSs in binary systems (e.g., Harrison et al. 1993; Kaspi et al. 1996; Lyne & Lorimer 1994; Fryer et al. 1998; Lai et al. 2001; Arzoumanian et al. 2002; Chatterjee et al. 2005; Hobbs et al. 2005).”
Three-dimensional neutrino-driven supernovae: neutron star kicks, spins, and asymmetric ejection of nucleosynthesis products (2012, background): “Some of them move with an estimated transverse velocity even higher than 500 km s−1, such as the compact stellar remnant RX J0822-4300 in Puppis A with a velocity of 672±115 km s−1 (Becker et al. 2012), and PSR B1508+55 with a velocity of 1083+103−90 km s −1 (Chatterjee et al. 2005).”
Multidimensional supernova simulations with approximative neutrino transport. I. Neutron star kicks and the anisotropy of neutrino-driven explosions in two spatial dimensions (2006, background): “This demonstrates that the acceleration mechanism at work in our calculations has the potential to explain even the highest observed pulsar velocities (see e.g. Chatterjee et al. 2005).”
Multidimensional supernova simulations with approximative neutrino transport. II. Convection and the (2007, background): “…stars move through interstellar space with velocities much higher than those of their progenitors (e.g., Cordes et al. 1993; Lyne & Lorimer 1994; Hansen & Phinney 1997; Arzoumanian et al. 2002; Zou et al. 2005; Chatterjee et al. 2005; Hobbs et al. 2005), in some cases with more than 1000 km s−1.”