ON THE MAXIMUM MASS OF STELLAR BLACK HOLES

By Krzysztof Belczyński, T. Bulik, Chris L. Fryer, A. Ruiter, Francesca Valsecchi, J. Vink, J. Hurley. 2009

395 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the spectrum of compact object masses: neutron stars and black holes (BHs) that originate from single stars in different environments. In particular, we calculate the dependence of maximum BH mass on metallicity and on some specific wind mass loss rates (e.g., Hurley et al. and Vink et al.). Our calculations show that the highest mass BHs observed in the Galaxy Mbh ∼ 15 M☉ in the high metallicity environment (Z = Z☉ = 0.02) can be explained with stellar models and the wind mass loss rates adopted here. To reach this result we had to set luminous blue variable mass loss rates at the level of ∼10−4 M☉ yr−1 and to employ metallicity-dependent Wolf–Rayet winds. With such winds, calibrated on Galactic BH mass measurements, the maximum BH mass obtained for moderate metallicity (Z = 0.3 Z☉ = 0.006) is Mbh,max = 30 M☉. This is a rather striking finding as the mass of the most massive known stellar BH is Mbh = 23–34 M☉ and, in fact, it is located in a small star-forming galaxy with moderate metallicity. We find that in the very low (globular cluster-like) metallicity environment the maximum BH mass can be as high as Mbh,max = 80 M☉ (Z = 0.01 Z☉ = 0.0002). It is interesting to note that X-ray luminosity from Eddington-limited accretion onto an 80 M☉ BH is of the order of ∼1040 erg s−1 and is comparable to luminosities of some known ultra-luminous X-ray sources. We emphasize that our results were obtained for single stars only and that binary interactions may alter these maximum BH masses (e.g., accretion from a close companion). This is strictly a proof-of-principle study which demonstrates that stellar models can naturally explain even the most massive known stellar BHs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/98e01cc0a1c9c475c0b6ff5e36f4b14afdd1da2e

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Citations in the corpus

Eccentric Black Hole Gravitational-wave Capture Sources in Galactic Nuclei: Distribution of Binary Parameters (2017, neutral): “…set = m M5BH,min , based on the observations of X-ray binaries (Bailyn et al. 1998; Özel et al. 2010; Farr et al. 2011; Belczynski et al. 2012), and we set the fiducial value for the highest possible BH mass to be mBH,max=30Me, but also explore cases between 10 M and 80 M (Belczynski et al. 2010).”
Double neutron stars: merger rates revisited (2017, background): “The current treatment of the stellar wind mass-loss is described in section 2 in Belczynski et al. (2010).”
ASTROPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGER GW150914 (2016, methodology): “Quantitatively, Belczynski et al. (2010a) and later Mapelli et al. (2013) and Spera et al. (2015) showed that adopting the latest wind prescriptions(Vink 2008) significantly increases the stellar mass at core collapse and thus the maximum BH mass that can form from single stars, although the exact…”
Very massive stars, pair-instability supernovae and intermediate-mass black holes with the sevn code (2017, background): “The mass of a compact object is expected to strongly depend on the evolution of its progenitor and on the final supernova (SN) mechanism (Mapelli et al. 2009; Belczynski et al. 2010; Mapelli et al. 2013; Spera et al. 2015).”
Ultraluminous X-ray sources in the Chandra and XMM-Newton era (2011, background): “Some authors (e.g.Kaaret 2008) prefer to useLX > 3 × 1039 ergs s−1, that is the Eddington limit of the heaviest stellar BH (20M⊙) expected at normal metallicity (Belczynski et al. 2010), toexclude a large number of “faint” ULXs that should be similar to normal Galactic BHBs.”
Radiation Backgrounds at Cosmic Dawn: X-Rays from Compact Binaries (2016, methodology): “The other parameters used in model 265 include an up-to-date suite of stellar wind prescriptions for stars in different evolutionary phases (Belczynski et al. 2010), a low common envelope ejection efficiency (αCE ×λ ∼ 0.1, where αCE is the efficiency with which orbital energy is converted into heat…”
COSMIC Variance in Binary Population Synthesis (2019, background): “Winds Mass loss through stellar winds plays an important role in compact object formation because this determines the mass of the star just before it undergoes a supernova (SN) explosion (e.g., Mapelli et al. 2009; Belczynski et al. 2010; Fryer et al. 2012; Giacobbo et al. 2018).”
MISSING BLACK HOLES UNVEIL THE SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION MECHANISM (2011, background): “However, if the metallicity is decreased the mass loss rates drop as well, and the maximum BH mass can extend to∼ 80 M⊙ in our models for Z = 0.01Z⊙ (Belczynski et al. 2010).”
COMPACT BINARY MERGER RATES: COMPARISON WITH LIGO/VIRGO UPPER LIMITS (2015, methodology): “However, once we incorporate this very strong dependence into cosmological models of the Universe and employ a broad spectrum of metallicities (as in our methods II and III), the merger rate density predictions are not as strongly affected.”
Compact binary coalescences in the band of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors (2009, methodology): “Additionally, although stellar winds in high-metallicity environments may prevent the formation of massive black holes, mass loss through stellar winds would be much less significant in low-metallicity environments, allowing more massive black holes to form [12].”
DYNAMICAL FORMATION OF THE GW150914 BINARY BLACK HOLE (2016, background): “…is unsurprising: lower metallicities yield less effective stellar winds (Vink 2011), reducing the amount of mass that is lost before a massive star collapses, and producing “heavy” BHs like the observed components of GW150914 (Belczynski et al. 2010; Mapelli et al. 2013; Spera et al. 2015).”
DOUBLE COMPACT OBJECTS. II. COSMOLOGICAL MERGER RATES (2013, methodology): “This has been shown to have a significant impact on the number of DCOs, altering the merger rates by orders of magnitude (Belczynski et al. 2007, 2010b).”
Merging black holes in young star clusters (2019, background): “Such massive stellar BHs are expected to form from the direct collapse of massive metal-poor stars (e.g. Heger et al. 2003; Mapelli et al. 2009, 2010; Belczynski et al. 2010; Fryer et al. 2012; Mapelli et al. 2013; Spera et al. 2015; Spera & Mapelli 2017).”
THE EFFECT OF METALLICITY ON THE DETECTION PROSPECTS FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVES (2010, methodology): “In-depth study of the overall cosmic star formation rate, and the contribution of mergers from stars born at high redshift, using existing tools (Belczynski et al. 2010b) is underway.”
Hierarchical analysis of gravitational-wave measurements of binary black hole spin–orbit misalignments (2017, background): “…to) uncertainties in the initial distributions of the orbital elements (de Mink & Belczynski 2015), the strength of stellar winds in massive stars (Belczynski et al. 2010), the effect of rotation of massive stars on stellar evolution (de Mink et al. 2013; Ramı́rez-Agudelo et al. 2015), the natal…”