Hypervelocity A & B Stars should be slow rotators

TL;DR

This paper suggests that hypervelocity stars should be slow rotators if they originate from binary disruptions by the Milky Way's central black hole, providing a test for their formation mechanism.

Contribution

It proposes that hypervelocity stars should have lower rotation speeds than typical field stars, offering a new observational test for their binary disruption origin.

Findings

Hypervelocity stars are predicted to be slow rotators.

Rotational velocity differences can test the binary disruption model.

This approach offers a direct observational test for star origin hypotheses.

Abstract

The most commonly accepted explanation for the origin of hypervelocity stars in the halo of the Milky Way is that they are the result of tidal disruption of binaries by the massive black hole at the center of the Galaxy. We show that, if this scenario is correct, and if the original binary properties are similar to those in the local stellar neighbourhood, then the hypervelocity stars should rotate with velocities measureably lower than those for field stars of similar spectral type. This may prove to be a more direct test of the model than trying to predict the position and velocity distributions.