Massive black hole binaries from runaway collisions: the impact of metallicity

By Michela Mapelli. 2016

206 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The runaway collision scenario is one of the most promising mechanisms to explain the formation of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in young dense star clusters. On the other hand, the massive stars that participate in the runaway collisions lose mass by stellar winds. In this paper, we discuss new N-body simulations of massive (6.5x10^4 Msun) star clusters, in which we added upgraded recipes for stellar winds and supernova explosion at different metallicity. We follow the evolution of the principal collision product (PCP), through dynamics and stellar evolution, till it forms a stellar remnant. At solar metallicity, the mass of the final merger product spans from few solar masses up to ~30 Msun. At low metallicity (0.01-0.1 Zsun) the maximum remnant mass is ~250 Msun, in the range of IMBHs. A large fraction (~0.6) of the PCPs are not ejected from the parent star cluster and acquire stellar or black hole (BH) companions. Most of the long-lived binaries hosting a PCP are BH-BH binaries. We discuss the importance of this result for gravitational wave detection.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2a09bd52032bf90c12d94304597a28790b54e20c

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Michela Mapelli
2. N. Giacobbo
3. Mario Spera
4. Ilya Mandel
5. D. Holz
6. F. Rasio
7. Maya Fishbach
8. F. Antonini

Citations in the corpus

• Very massive stars, pair-instability supernovae and intermediate-mass black holes with the sevn code (2017, methodology): “…no IMBHs can form at solar metallicity from runaway collisions (in good agreement with Mapelli 2016), while ∼ 20 − 30 per cent of runaway collision products can collapse to IMBHs at Z ≤ 0.002 (Mapelli 2016 predicts that ∼ 10 − 20 per cent of runaway collision products can form IMBHs at Z ≤ 0.002).”
• Formation and Evolution of Compact-object Binaries in AGN Disks (2019, background): “…et al. 2019) and dense star clusters (e.g., Portegies Zwart & McMillan 2000; O’Leary et al. 2006, 2016; Samsing et al. 2014; Ziosi et al. 2014; Mapelli 2016; Rodriguez et al. 2016a, 2016b; Askar et al. 2017; Fujii et al. 2017; di Carlo et al. 2019; Zevin et al. 2019; Zhang et al. 2019), and…”
• Merging black holes in young star clusters (2019, background): “Other dynamical processes which might affect the evolution of compact-object binaries include runaway collisions (e.g. Mapelli 2016), Spitzer’s instability (Spitzer 1969), Kozai-Lidov resonances (Kozai 1962; Lidov 1962), and dynamical ejections (e.g. Downing et al. 2011).”
• Modeling Dense Star Clusters in the Milky Way and Beyond with the CMC Cluster Catalog (2019, background): “…conditions are met (i.e., if a cluster is sufficiently dense at early times), stellar collisions may lead to a runaway scenario, resulting in the formation of a very massive star and, ultimately, an IMBH (e.g., Portegies Zwart et al. 2004; Freitag et al. 2006; Giersz et al. 2015; Mapelli 2016).”
• Observational evidence for intermediate-mass black holes (2017, background): “Another way to form IMBHs is via runaway collisions of stars in dense stellar clusters (e.g., Portegies Zwart et al. 2004, 1999; Devecchi & Volonteri 2009; Mapelli 2016).”
• Merging black hole binaries: the effects of progenitor's metallicity, mass-loss rate and Eddington factor (2017, background): “The impact of stellar dynamics on the formation of BHBs is also matter of debate (e.g. Ziosi et al. 2014; Rodriguez et al. 2015, 2016; Mapelli 2016; Askar et al. 2016; Antonini et al. 2017; Banerjee 2017).”
• Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run (2016, result): “[184] M.”
• The cosmic merger rate of neutron stars and black holes (2018, methodology): “In Mapelli et al. (2017), we estimate that the impact on the BHB merger rate of the difference between the Illustris mass-metallicity relation and the observational relation tent with PARSEC stellar evolution tracks (Chen et al. 2015) for stars with mass > 100 M , as discussed in Mapelli (2016).”
• Evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates for LIGO/Virgo binary black holes (2017, background): “…al. 2004, 2006; O’Leary et al. 2007; Sadowski et al. 2008; Downing et al. 2010; Benacquista & Downing 2013; Bae et al. 2014; Chatterjee et al. 2017; Mapelli 2016; Hurley et al. 2016; Rodriguez et al. 2016a; VanLandingham et al. 2016; Askar et al. 2017; Arca-Sedda & Capuzzo-Dolcetta 2019; Samsing…”
• Merging black hole binaries with the SEVN code (2018, background): “In contrast, they can be very important if they form in star clusters, where they have a high chance to acquire a companion through dynamical exchanges, so that they possibly become loud GW sources (Portegies Zwart & McMillan 2000; Mapelli 2016; Askar et al. 2017).”
• Black hole growth through hierarchical black hole mergers in dense star clusters: implications for gravitational wave detections (2018, background): “Other scenarios, invoking runaway collisions of massive stars and/or the collapse of a very massive star (& 200M⊙) could also lead to the formation of IMBHs in globular clusters (e.g., Portegies Zwart et al. (2004), Mapelli (2016), Gieles et al. (2018b), and Section 3.2).”
• Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2018, background): “…al. 2006; Ivanova et al. 2008; Sadowski et al. 2008; Downing et al. 2010, 2011; Clausen et al. 2013; Ziosi et al. 2014; Rodriguez et al. 2015, 2016a; Mapelli 2016; Askar et al. 2017; Banerjee 2017; Chatterjee et al. 2017) and galactic nuclei (Antonini & Perets 2012; Antonini & Rasio 2016;…”
• The progenitors of compact-object binaries: impact of metallicity, common envelope and natal kicks (2018, background): “If they were evolved in a dynamically active environment, such as a star cluster, some of the most massive BHs (with mass 45− 65 M ) might still merge within a Hubble time, as a consequence of dynamical hardening or dynamical exchanges (e.g. Mapelli 2016).”
• MOCCA-SURVEY Database - I. Coalescing binary black holes originating from globular clusters (2016, methodology): “…for massive stars to estimate merger rates and properties of BBHs originating from GCs. Results from limited N-body simulations have also been used to estimate GW merger rates in recent studies by Banerjee, Baumgardt, & Kroupa (2010); Tanikawa (2013); Bae, Kim, & Lee (2014); Mapelli (2016).”