Investigating stellar‐mass black hole kicks

By S. Repetto, M. Davies, S. Sigurdsson. 2012

176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We investigate whether stellar-mass black holes have to receive natal kicks in order to explain the observed distribution of low-mass X-ray binaries containing black holes within our Galaxy. Such binaries are the product of binary evolution, where the massive primary has exploded forming a stellar-mass black hole, probably after a common envelope phase where the system contracted down to separations of the order of 10-30 R-circle dot. We perform population synthesis calculations of these binaries, applying both kicks due to supernova mass-loss and natal kicks due to the newly formed black hole. We then integrate the trajectories of the binary systems within the Galactic potential. We find that natal kicks are in fact necessary to reach the large distances above the Galactic plane achieved by some binaries. Further, we find that the distribution of natal kicks would seem to be similar to that of neutron stars, rather than one where the kick velocities are reduced by the ratio of black hole to neutron star mass (i.e. where the kicks have the same momentum). This result is somewhat surprising; in many pictures of stellar-mass black hole formation, one might have expected black holes to receive kicks having the same momentum (rather than the same speed) as those given to neutron stars. (Less)

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/008547f718b4cf3ee061afec9a8f1494b38cee7b

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Citations in the corpus

Merging binary black holes formed through chemically homogeneous evolution in short-period stellar binaries (2015, background): “Both the mass fallback fraction (e.g., Fryer 1999; Belczynski et al. 2012; Fryer et al. 2012) and black-hole natal kicks (e.g, Repetto et al. 2012; Janka 2013; MillerJones 2014) accompanying BH-forming core collapse supernovae are highly uncertain.”
Neutron Star Kicks by the Gravitational Tug-boat Mechanism in Asymmetric Supernova Explosions: Progenitor and Explosion Dependence (2016, background): “Or, alternatively, it could mean that most BHs originate from SNe with very little or rather spherical mass ejection.”
The cosmic merger rate of stellar black hole binaries from the Illustris simulation (2017, background): “There are no conclusive observational constraints on the natal kick of BHs, even if some recent studies indicate that high-velocity kicks are possible (Repetto et al. 2012, 2017; O’Shaughnessy et al. 2017a).”
ILLUMINATING BLACK HOLE BINARY FORMATION CHANNELS WITH SPINS IN ADVANCED LIGO (2016, background): “…(LMXBs) in the galaxy have suggested that, while most BHs are consistant with no NKs at formation, at least a few BHs may receive NKs as high as ∼ 100 km/s (Podsiadlowski et al. 2002; Willems et al. 2005; Fragos et al. 2009; Wong et al. 2012, 2014; Repetto et al. 2012; Repetto & Nelemans 2015).”
THE DYNAMICAL EVOLUTION OF STELLAR BLACK HOLES IN GLOBULAR CLUSTERS (2014, background): “The answers to these questions can help to constrain the initial populations of BHs and BH kicks, both of which are still highly uncertain (Farr et al. 2011; Janka 2013; Repetto et al. 2012).”
MERGING BLACK HOLE BINARIES IN GALACTIC NUCLEI: IMPLICATIONS FOR ADVANCED-LIGO DETECTIONS (2016, methodology): “Thus the kick velocities are reduced in these latter models by the neutron star to BH mass ratio (Repetto et al. 2012).”
Hierarchical analysis of gravitational-wave measurements of binary black hole spin–orbit misalignments (2017, background): “…the effect of rotation of massive stars on stellar evolution (de Mink et al. 2013; Ramı́rez-Agudelo et al. 2015), the natal kicks (if any) given to BHs (Repetto et al. 2012; Mandel 2016; Mirabel 2016; Repetto et al. 2017) and the efficiency of the CE (Ivanova et al. 2013; Kruckow et al. 2016).”
COMPACT BINARY MERGER RATES: COMPARISON WITH LIGO/VIRGO UPPER LIMITS (2015, methodology): “In the case of GS 2023+338, the 3D peculiar velocity was measured and a better estimate of the natal kick may now be obtained, superseding the value presented in Repetto et al. (2012).”
Rates of compact object coalescences (2021, background): “…binary surviving the first and second supernovae without being disrupted, fsurvive SN1 and fsurvive SN2, are both close to 1 for the heavier black holes that may form through complete collapse with negligible natal kicks (Mirabel, 2017, but see Repetto et al. 2012; Mandel 2016; Atri et al. 2019).”
The evolution of hierarchical triple star-systems (2016, background): “Also, whether or not black holes that are formed in core-collapse supernova receive a kick is still under debate (e.g. Gualandris et al., 2005; Repetto and Nelemans, 2015; Repetto et al., 2012; Wong et al., 2014; Zuo, 2015).”
Massive runaway and walkaway stars (2018, background): “Evidence for non-zero BH natal kicks comes from the observed Galactic latitude of BH X-ray binaries (e.g., Fragos et al. 2009; Repetto et al. 2012, 2017; Repetto & Nelemans 2015, although see also Mandel 2016), the possibility of retrograde BH spin (e.g., Morningstar et al. 2014), eccentric orbits…”