THE EVOLUTIONARY STATUS OF THE BLACK-HOLE CANDIDATE V404 CYGNI

I show that the black hole candidate system V404 Cygni conforms to a simple picture of 'stripped-giant' evolution, in which an evolved secondary star of core mass M(c) is similar to 0.20-0.22 M. overflows its Roche lobe. The predicted absolute magnitudes for this star give system distances of 3.5-5.1 kpc and peak X-ray luminosities L(X) is similar to 1.8-3.75 x 10(39) erg s-1. The mass-transfer rates predicted by the, evolutionary picture agree well with X-ray observations.