Green Bank Telescope Measurement of the Systemic Velocity of the Double Pulsar Binary J0737–3039 and Implications for Its Formation

We report on the measurement at 820 and 1400 MHz of the orbital modulation of the diffractive scintillation timescale from pulsar A in the double-pulsar system J0737-3039 using the Green Bank Telescope. With fits to this modulation, we determine the systemic velocity in the plane of the sky to be VISS ≃ 140.9 ± 6.2 km s-1. The parallel and perpendicular components of this velocity with respect to the line of nodes of the pulsar's orbit are Vplane ≃ 96.0 ± 3.7 km s-1 and Vperp ≃ 103.1 ± 7.7 km s-1, respectively. The large Vperp implies that pulsar B was born with a kick speed of ≳100 km s-1. Future Very Long Baseline Array determinations of the angular proper motion in conjunction with improved VISS measurements should provide a precise distance to the system. Using high-precision timing data and the VISS model, we estimate a best-fit orbital inclination of i = 88.°7 ± 0.°9.

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