A new route towards merging massive black holes

By P. Marchant, N. Langer, P. Podsiadlowski, T. Tauris, T. Moriya. 2016

433 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent advances in gravitational-wave astronomy make the direct detection of gravitational waves from the merger of two stellar-mass compact objects a realistic prospect. Evolutionary scenarios towards mergers of double compact objects generally invoke common-envelope evolution which is poorly understood, leading to large uncertainties in merger rates. We explore the alternative scenario of massive overcontact binary (MOB) evolution, which involves two very massive stars in a very tight binary which remain fully mixed due to their tidally induced high spin. We use the public stellar-evolution code MESA to systematically study this channel by means of detailed simulations. We find that, at low metallicity, MOBs produce double-black-hole (BH+BH) systems that will merge within a Hubble time with mass ratios close to one, in two mass ranges, ~25...60msun and >~ 130msun, with pair instability supernovae (PISNe) being produced in-between. Our models are also able to reproduce counterparts of various stages in the MOB scenario in the local Universe, providing direct support for it. We map the initial parameter space that produces BH+BH mergers, determine the expected chirp mass distribution, merger times, Kerr parameters and predict event rates. We typically find that for Z~<Z_sun/10, there is one BH+BH merger for ~1000 core-collapse supernovae. The advanced LIGO (aLIGO) detection rate is more uncertain and depends on the metallicity evolution. Deriving upper and lower limits from a local and a global approximation for the metallicity distribution of massive stars, we estimate aLIGO detection rates (at design limit) of ~19-550 yr^(-1) for BH+BH mergers below the PISN gap and of ~2.1-370 yr^(-1) above the PISN gap. Even with conservative assumptions, we find that aLIGO should soon detect BH+BH mergers from the MOB scenario and that these could be the dominant source for aLIGO detections.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2dabc0f5ef155e699c1f3a7c5cf01d32a598d553

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Citations in the corpus

The effect of pair-instability mass loss on black-hole mergers (2016, methodology): “Finally, prior to the first BH-BH merger detections, Population I/II very massive stars (>150 M ; Crowther et al. 2010) were also introduced into predictions of BH-BH merger rates (Belczynski et al. 2014; Marchant et al. 2016).”
Constraining Formation Models of Binary Black Holes with Gravitational-wave Observations (2017, background): “…predicted to evolve and tighten through a common-envelope phase (e.g., Voss & Tau-ris 2003; Dominik et al. 2013; Belczynski et al. 2014), or through chemically homogeneous evolution of close binaries that attain rapid rotation (de Mink & Mandel 2016; Marchant et al. 2016; Mandel & de Mink 2016).”
Merging black hole binaries with the SEVN code (2018, background): “…Tutukov et al. 1973; Bethe & Brown 1998; Belczynski et al. 2016a; de Mink & Mandel 2016; Giacobbo, Mapelli & Spera 2018; Mandel & de Mink 2016; Marchant et al. 2016; Mapelli & Giacobbo 2018) or from dynamical processes involving BHs in dense star clusters (e.g. Portegies Zwart & McMillan…”
Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run (2016, background): “The low masses of GW151226 are probably inconsistent with the chemically homogeneous evolution scenario, under which higher masses are thought to be required [176,177].”
Black Hole Mergers in Galactic Nuclei Induced by the Eccentric Kozai–Lidov Effect (2017, background): “These merging BH binaries may also be a result of isolated binary evolution in the galactic field due to special modes of stellar evolution and evolution in active galactic nuclei (Mandel & de Mink 2016; de Mink & Mandel 2016; Belczynski et al. 2016a; Marchant et al. 2016).”
Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis Version 2.1: Construction, Observational Verification, and New Results (2017, methodology): “We only consider QHE that arises from mass transfer, however, and do not yet include it in tidal interactions as done by Mandel & de Mink (2016) and Marchant et al. (2016).”
Progenitors of gravitational wave mergers: binary evolution with the stellar grid-based code ComBinE (2018, background): “Marchant et al. (2016) presented the first detailed CHE models leading to the formation of BH-BH systems and demonstrated that massive-overcontact binaries are particularly suited for this channel.”
Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2018, background): “…2016; Mapelli et al. 2017; Stevenson et al. 2017b; Tauris et al. 2017; Chruslinska et al. 2018; Giacobbo & Mapelli 2018; Giacobbo et al. 2018; Kruckow et al. 2018; Mapelli & Giacobbo 2018) or via chemically homogeneous evolution(de Mink & Mandel 2016; Mandel & de Mink 2016; Marchant et al. 2016).”
The cosmic merger rate of neutron stars and black holes (2018, background): “For example, Marchant et al. (2016) proposed that two very massive metal-poor stars in a close binary can remain fully mixed because of their tidally induced high spin and thus evolve as a massive over-contact binary: a binary whose components both overfill their Roche lobe but avoid merger,…”
ASTROPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGER GW150914 (2016, background): “…formation pathways, avoiding mass transfer and common envelope, may be possible if massive stars remain rapidly rotating, stay chemically homogeneous through their lifetimes, remain compact, and do not become giant stars (see de Mink et al. 2009; Mandel & de Mink 2016; Marchant et al. 2016).”
Double neutron stars: merger rates revisited (2017, background): “…X-ray binaries Liu, van Paradijs & van den Heuvel 2007) and account for the formation of merging double compact objects without dynamical interactions (e.g. Mapelli, Colpi & Zampieri 2009; Rodriguez, Chatterjee & Rasio 2016) or rapid stellar rotation (de Mink & Mandel 2016; Marchant et al. 2016).”
GW231123: A Binary Black Hole Merger with Total Mass 190–265 M⊙ (2025, positive): “Short-period stellar binaries might avoid merging and produce binary BHs with large, equal masses ∼ 100 M ⊙ from rapidly rotating metal-poor stars due to chemically homogeneous evolution (de Mink & Mandel 2016; Mandel & de Mink 2016; Marchant et al. 2016).”
Where Are LIGO’s Big Black Holes? (2017, background): “…and pair instability supernovae (PISN) (Fowler & Hoyle 1964; Rakavy et al. 1967; Bond et al. 1984) lead to a second mass gap between∼ 50 and 135M for BHs formed from stellar core collapse (Belczynski et al. 2014; Marchant et al. 2016; Belczynski et al. 2016c; Woosley 2017; Spera & Mapelli 2017).”
Hierarchical analysis of gravitational-wave measurements of binary black hole spin–orbit misalignments (2017, background): “…remain locked with binaries trapped in or out of resonance (Gerosa et al. 2017); however, it is unlikely for astrophysical formation scenarios to produce exactly equal mass binaries, although Marchant et al. (2016) predict nearly equal masses for the chemically homogeneous evolution channel.”
Formation and Evolution of Compact-object Binaries in AGN Disks (2019, background): “…expansion (Tagawa et al. 2018), or chemically homogeneous evolution in a tidally distorted binary (de Mink & Mandel 2016; Mandel & de Mink 2016; Marchant et al. 2016), evolution of triple or quadruple systems (Antonini et al. 2017; Liu & Lai 2017, 2018, 2019; Silsbee & Tremaine 2017;…”
The origin of spin in binary black holes (2019, background): “It was shown by Marchant et al. (2016) that the chemically homogeneous evolution channel mostly produce highly spinning BHs (a1,2 > 0.4), which are currently not observed.”