Massive runaways and walkaway stars

Understand

Anticipating the kinematic constraints from the Gaia mission, we perform an extensive numerical study of the evolution of massive binary systems to predict the peculiar velocities that stars obtain when their companion collapses and disrupts the system.

• Our aim is to (1) identify which predictions are robust against model uncertainties and assess their implications, (2) investigate which physical processes leave a clear imprint and may therefore be constrained observationally and (3) provide a suite of publicly available model predictions.
• We find that $22_{-8}^{+26}$% of all massive binary systems merge prior to the first core collapse in the system.
• Of the remainder, $86_{-9}^{+11}$% become unbound because of the core-collapse.