Session 113 - Neutron Stars & Pulsars.
Oral session, Saturday, January 10
International Ballroom East,

## [113.04] The Spatial Distribution of Coalescing Neutron Star Binaries

J. S. Bloom (Caltech), S. Sigurdsson (IoA, Cambridge), O. Pols (IAC, Spain)

We find the distribution of merger times, spatial velocities, and subsequent radial offsets of coelescing NSs in various galactic potentials. Due to large asymmetric kicks introduced during the two supernovae, bound NS pairs exhibit an anticorelation of v_sys and merger time \tau. As such only a small fraction of coelescing NSs (\le 1 percent), even in shallow galactic potentials (L \le 0.1L_*), escape to distances beyond 20 kpc from the galactic centre. This indidcates that most NS coalescences will occur inside their hosts, with only a small fraction undergoing coalescence at large projected separations. In addition, we find that the spatial distribution of coalescing neutron star binaries is consistent with the close spatial association of the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts GRB 970228 and GRB 970508 with underluminous galaxies.