Merging Binaries in the Galactic Center: The eccentric Kozai-Lidov mechanism with stellar evolution
By A. Stephan, S. Naoz, A. Ghez, G. Witzel, B. Sitarski, T. Do, B. Kocsis. 2016
153 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Most, if not all, stars in the field are born in binary configurations or higher multiplicity systems. In dense stellar environment such as the Galactic Center (GC), many stars are expected to be in binary configurations as well. These binaries form hierarchical triple body systems, with the massive black hole (MBH) as the third, distant object. The stellar binaries are expected to undergo large amplitude eccentricity and inclination oscillations via the so-called "eccentric Kozai-Lidov" (EKL) mechanism. These eccentricity excitations, combined with post main sequence stellar evolution, can drive the inner stellar binaries to merge. We study the mergers of stellar binaries in the inner 0.1 pc of the GC caused by gravitational perturbations due to the MBH. We run a large set of Monte Carlo simulations that include the secular evolution of the orbits, general relativistic precession, tides, and post-main-sequence stellar evolution. We find that about 13 % of the initial binary population will have merged after a few million years and about 29 % after a few billion years. These expected merged systems represent a new class of objects at the GC and we speculate that they are connected to G2-like objects and the young stellar population.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/baab8f3298ceb210590ad9c626fdff91b77ce5e7
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In Astronomy and Astrophysics
Citations in the corpus
- Formation and Evolution of Compact-object Binaries in AGN Disks (2019, background): “In the Galactic center, binary disruption due to soft-binary– single interactions may further decrease the BH binary fraction (see also Stephan et al. 2016).”
- The Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect and Its Applications (2016, background): “…many interesting application for stellar dynamics from stellar mergers (e.g., Perets and Fabrycky 2009; Naoz and Fabrycky 2014; Witzel et al. 2014; Stephan et al. 2016) to compact binary merger which may prompt supernova explosions for double white dwarf merger (e.g., Thompson 2011; Katz and Dong…”
- Rapid and Bright Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers in Active Galactic Nuclei (2016, background): “BBHs near supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are also subject to secular Kozai-Lidov processes, which can alter the inclination and eccentricity of their orbit, potentially decreasing the merger time (Antonini & Perets 2012; Stephan et al. 2016).”
- Rates of compact object coalescences (2021, background): “…a previously stable stellar triple into instability or drive the inner binary toward merger (Perets and Kratter, 2012; Shappee and Thompson, 2013; Stephan et al., 2016), while chemically homogenous evolution and triple dynamics could produce sequential BH-BH mergers (Vigna-Gómez et al., 2021b).”
- Black Hole Mergers in Galactic Nuclei Induced by the Eccentric Kozai–Lidov Effect (2017, methodology): “If the former is in effect, then in some cases some binaries might merge during the main sequence evolution (Prodan et al. 2015; Stephan et al. 2016) the BH-binary semi-major axis distribution changes after applying the stability criteria (see below).”
- Greatly Enhanced Merger Rates of Compact-object Binaries in Non-spherical Nuclear Star Clusters (2017, background): “…process can lead to a number of potentially important phenomena, including the merger of stellar binaries which can result in the formation of massive stars and/or G2-like objects (Antonini et al. 2011; Prodan et al. 2015; Stephan et al. 2016; Liu et al. 2017); and the formation of X-ray binaries.”