Double neutron stars: Evidence for two different neutron-star formation mechanisms

Six of the eight double neutron stars known in the Galactic disk have low orbital eccentricities (< 0.27) indicating that their second-born neutron stars received only very small velocity kicks at birth. This is similar to the case of the B-emission X-ray binaries, where a sizable fraction of the neutron stars received hardly any velocity kick at birth (Pfahl et al. 2002). The masses of the second-born neutron stars in five of the six low-eccentricity double neutron stars are remarkably low (between 1.18 and 1.30M(circle dot)). It is argued that these low-mass, low-kick neutron stars were formed by the electron-capture collapse of the degenerate O-Ne-Mg cores of helium stars less massive than about 3.5M(circle dot), whereas the higher-mass, higher kick-velocity neutron stars were formed by the collapses of the iron cores of higher initial mass. The absence of low-velocity single young radio pulsars (Hobbs et al. 2005) is consistent with the model proposed by Podsiadlowski et al. (2004), in which the electron-capture collapse of degenerate O-Ne-Mg cores can only occur in binary systems, and not in single stars.