The ordinary way of estimating the double NS merger rate from binary pulsar statistics is based
on the following extrapolation [272, 314]. Suppose we observe
classes of Galactic binary
pulsars. Taking into account various selection effects of pulsar surveys (see, e.g., [271, 191
]),
the Galactic number of pulsars
in each class can be evaluated. To compute the Galactic
merger rate of double NS binaries, we need to know the time since the birth of the NS observed
as a pulsar in the given binary system. This time is the sum of the observed characteristic
pulsar age
and the time required for the binary system to merge due to GW orbit decay
. With the exception of PSR J0737–3039B and the recently discovered
PSR J1906+0746, pulsars that we observe in binary NS systems are old recycled pulsars
which were spun-up by accretion from the secondary companion to the period of several tens of ms (see
Table 2). Thus their characteristic ages can be estimated as the time since termination of spin-up
by accretion (for the younger pulsar PSR J0737–3039B this time can be
also computed as the dynamical age of the pulsar,
, which gives essentially the same
result).
Then the merger rate can be calculated as
(summed over all binary
pulsars). The detailed analysis [191] indicates that the Galactic merger rate of double NSs is mostly
determined by pulsars with faint radio luminosity and short orbital periods. Presently, it is the nearby
(600 pc) double-pulsar system PSR J0737–3039 with a short orbital period of 2.4 hr [49
]
that mostly determines the empirical estimate of the merger rate. According to Kim et al. [192
], “the most
likely values of DNS merger rate lie in the range 3 – 190 per Myr depending on different pulsar models”. The
estimates by population synthesis codes are still plagued by uncertainties in statistics of binaries, in
modeling binary evolution and supernovae. The most optimistic “theoretical” predictions amount to
300 Myr–1 [420
, 23
].
Recently, the bursting radio source GCRT J1745–3009 in the direction to the
Galactic centre was proposed to be a possible double NS binary [407]. The source was found to emit a series
of radio bursts with high brightness temperature, of typical duration 10 min, with an apparent
periodic pattern of
77 min [158]. Confirmation of the binary NS nature of transient radio sources like
GCRT J1745–3009 would be important to get a more precise estimate of the Galactic
coalescence rate of double NS.
The extrapolation beyond the Galaxy is usually done by scaling the Galactic merger rate to the volume
from which the merger events can be detected with given GW detector’s sensitivity. The scaling factor
widely used is the ratio between the B-band luminosity density in the local Universe, correlating with the
star-formation rate, and the B-band luminosity of the Galaxy [314, 184]. One can also use for this purpose
the direct ratio of the Galactic star formation rate [257
, 401
] to the star formation
rate on the local Universe
[307, 372]. These estimates yield the relation
Recently, the first results of the search for GWs from coalescing binary systems in the Milky Way and
the Magellanic Clouds using data taken by two of the three LIGO interferometers [2] established an
observational upper limit to the Galactic binary NS coalescence rate of
.
With increasing sensitivity of GW detectors, this limit will be much improved in the nearest
future.
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