The progenitors of pulsars

Open Access. The origin and evolution of neutron stars; Proceedings of the IAU Symposium, Nanjing, People's Republic of China, May 26-30, 1986 (A88-28476 10-90). Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1987.The present discussion of single and binary pulsars emphasizes those examples of the latter which have low-mass companions. It is determined that millisec pulsars must have a scale height comparable to that of low-mass X-ray binaries, from which they probably evolve, and it is predicted that there should be of the order of about 100 potentially observable millisec pulsars within about 4 kpc, provided that the lifetime of these pulsars is greater than about 1 billion years. The majority of ultrafast pulsars will be in binaries, and will have periods of 6-10 millisec