Re: Two neutron stars on a collision course?

On 2008-03-02, Crown-Horned Snorkack <chornedsnorkack@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> But such neutron stars would not form to begin with. The minimum
> mass for a neutron star would be the maximum mass of a white dwarf.

No, numerous pulsars in binary systems have been observed with masses
below that, e.g. J1756-2251 at 1.18 M_sol.  Certainly nowhere near as
low as 0.2 solar masses, though.  There is no known mechanism for
removing mass from a neutron star after formation, and hot proto-
neutron stars have higher minimum mass than cooler ones.

Masses lower than the Chandrasekhar limit do make sense.  After all, a
neutron star forms when the degenerate core only just exceeds the
limit, and collapses.  It loses some mass from the energy of the
explosion when it stalls.  In a type Ia supernova it does not
necessarily have a massive envelope surrounding it from which to
replenish this mass.


- Tim