The formation of single neutron stars from double white-dwarf mergers via accretion-induced collapse

Abstract

ABSTRACT The merging of double white dwarfs (WDs) may produce the events of accretion-induced collapse (AIC) and form single neutron stars (NSs). Meanwhile, it is also notable that the recently proposed WD+He subgiant scenario has a significant contribution to the production of massive double WDs, in which the primary WD grows in mass by accreting He-rich material from a He subgiant companion. In this work, we aim to study the binary population synthesis (BPS) properties of AIC events from the double WD mergers by considering the classical scenarios and also the contribution of the WD+He subgiant scenario to the formation of double WDs. First, we provided a dense and large model grid of WD+He star systems for producing AIC events through the double WD merger scenario. Secondly, we performed several sets of BPS calculations to obtain the rates and single NS number in our Galaxy. We found that the rates of AIC events from the double WD mergers in the Galaxy are in the range of $1.4{-}8.9\times 10^{\rm -3}\, \rm yr^{\rm -1}$ for all ONe/CO WD+ONe/CO WD mergers, and in the range of $0.3{-}3.8\times 10^{\rm -3}\, \rm yr^{\rm -1}$ when double CO WD mergers are not considered. We also found that the number of single NSs from AIC events in our Galaxy may range from 0.328 × 107 to 1.072 × 108. The chirp mass of double WDs for producing AIC events distribute in the range of $0.55{-}1.25\, \rm M_{\odot }$. We estimated that more than half of double WDs for producing AIC events are capable to be observed by the future space-based gravitational wave detectors.