The runaway black hole GRO J1655-40

Abstract

We have used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the motion in the sky and compute the galactocentric orbit of the black hole X-ray binary GRO J1655-40. The system moves with a runaway space velocity of 112+/- 18 km s-1 in a highly eccentric (e = 0.34+/- 0.05) orbit. The black hole was formed in the disk at a distance greater than 3 kpc from the Galactic centre and must have been shot to such an eccentric orbit by the explosion of the progenitor star. The runaway linear momentum and kinetic energy of this black hole binary are comparable to those of solitary neutron stars and millisecond pulsars. GRO J1655-40 is the first black hole for which there is evidence for a runaway motion imparted by a natal kick in a supernova explosion. Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc. under contract No NAS 5-26555.