Four-Body Effects in Globular Cluster Black Hole Coalescence

By M. C. Miller, Douglas P. Hamilton. 2002

207 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the high-density cores of globular clusters, multibody interactions are expected to be common, with the result that black holes in binaries are hardened by interactions. It was shown by Sigurdsson and Hernquist, Kulkarni, Hut, and McMillan, and others in 1993 that 10 M☉ black holes interacting exclusively by three-body encounters do not merge in the clusters themselves, because recoil kicks the binaries out of the clusters before the binaries are tight enough to merge. Here we consider a new mechanism, involving four-body encounters. Numerical simulations by a number of authors suggest that roughly 20%-50% of binary-binary encounters will eject one star but leave behind a stable hierarchical triple. If the orbital plane of the inner binary is strongly tilted with respect to the orbital plane of the outer object, a secular Kozai resonance, first investigated in the context of asteroids in the solar system, can increase the eccentricity of the inner body significantly. We show that in a substantial fraction of cases, the eccentricity is driven to a high enough value that the inner binary will merge by gravitational radiation, without a strong accompanying kick. Thus, the merged object remains in the cluster; depending on the binary fraction of black holes and the inclination distribution of newly formed hierarchical triples, this mechanism may allow massive black holes to accumulate through successive mergers in the cores of globular clusters. It may also increase the likelihood that stellar-mass black holes in globular clusters will be detectable by their gravitational radiation.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d0905ab009485a10820b4a96724e6a04208f4f06

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. F. Antonini
2. F. Rasio
3. S. Naoz
4. Michela Mapelli
5. B. Kocsis
6. J. Samsing
7. D. Holz
8. Ilya Mandel

Citations in the corpus

• Black hole growth through hierarchical black hole mergers in dense star clusters: implications for gravitational wave detections (2018, methodology): “…whether intermediate mass BHs (IMBHs; generally defined as BHs with mass in the range ∼ 100 − 105M⊙) can form in globular clusters via hierarchical mergers of stellar seed BHs (e.g., Miller & Hamilton 2002c; Gültekin et al. 2004; Giersz et al. 2015; Kovetz et al. 2018; Christian et al. 2018).”
• THE FORMATION OF ECCENTRIC COMPACT BINARY INSPIRALS AND THE ROLE OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE EMISSION IN BINARY–SINGLE STELLAR ENCOUNTERS (2013, background): “…We can write a hierar- 6 This estimate neglects other channels that could lead to eccentric binaries mergers, such as Kozai resonance in a triple systems (Miller & Hamilton 2002; Thompson 2011). chy of rates as ΓSS( fGW > 10 Hz) : Γ (WD−NS) insp : Γ (NS−NS) insp : Γ (NS−NS) merge ≈ 1 : 2 : 5 : 800.”
• Modeling Kicks from the Merger of Generic Black Hole Binaries (2008, background): “…al. 2006; Volonteri 2007), and for currentday mergers of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), which might exist in dense stellar clusters (Taniguchi et al. 2000; Miller & Hamilton 2002b,a; Mouri & Taniguchi 2002b,a; Miller & Colbert 2004; Gültekin et al. 2004, 2006; O’Leary et al. 2006, 2007).”
• ECCENTRICITY GROWTH AND ORBIT FLIP IN NEAR-COPLANAR HIERARCHICAL THREE-BODY SYSTEMS (2013, background): “…element both in the growth of black holes at the centre of dense star clusters and the formation of short-period binaries black hole (Blaes et al. 2002; Miller & Hamilton 2002; Wen 2003) and tidal disruption events (Chen et al. 2009, 2011; Wegg & Bode 2011; Bode & Wegg 2013; Li et al. 2013).”
• Intermediate - mass black holes (2003, background): “In older clusters, Miller & Hamilton (2002a) show that a black hole with initial mass M ∼ 50M⊙ can stay and grow in a globular cluster, and that binary-binary interactions can produce mergers without substantial dynamical kicks.”
• Timescales of Kozai-Lidov oscillations at quadrupole and octupole order in the test particle limit (2015, background): “…Naoz & Fabrycky 2014), the merger of WD-WD binaries (Thompson 2011; Katz et al. 2011), the merger of supermassive and intermediatemass black holes (Miller & Hamilton 2002b; Blaes et al. 1 While stable non-hierarchical triple systems are possible (e.g., Chenciner & Montgomery 2000; Šuvakov &…”
• Secular Dynamics in Hierarchical Three-Body Systems (2011, background): “In addition, Kozai-Lidov cycling has been suggested to play an important role in both the growth of black holes at the centers of dense star clusters and the formation of short-period binary black holes (Wen 2003; Miller and Hamilton 2002; Blaes et al. 2002).”
• Formation and evolution of compact binaries in globular clusters – II. Binaries with neutron stars (2007, background): “(4) The period of the cycle to achieveemax is (Innanen et al. 1997; Miller & Hamilton 2002) τKoz ≃ 0.42 ln(1/ei) √ sin2(i0) − 0.4 ( m1 + m2 mo b3o a3i )1/2 ( b3o Gmo )1/2 , (5) whereei is the initial eccentricity of the inner binary,m1, m2 and mo are the masses of the inner binary companions and…”
• Rapid Eccentricity Oscillations and the Mergers of Compact Objects in Hierarchical Triples (2013, background): “Kozai-Lidov cycles can drive the inner binary in some hierarchical triple systems to merger via gravitational wave emission (Blaes et al. 2002; Miller & Hamilton 2002).”
• Evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates for LIGO/Virgo binary black holes (2017, background): “…an evolutionary channel alternative to isolated binary evolution that could operate in globular clusters, nuclear clusters or open, young clusters (Miller & Hamilton 2002a,b; Portegies Zwart et al. 2004; Gültekin et al. 2004, 2006; O’Leary et al. 2007; Sadowski et al. 2008; Downing et al. 2010;…”
• Suppression of extreme orbital evolution in triple systems with short-range forces (2014, background): “…planets in the solar system (e.g., Carruba et al. 2002; Nesvorný et al. 2003); (v) The formation and merger of (stellar and supermassive) black hole binaries at the centers globular clusters or galaxies (e.g., Blaes et al. 2002; Miller & Hamilton 2002; Wen 2003; Antonini, Murray & Mikkola 2014).”
• BLACK HOLE MERGERS AND BLUE STRAGGLERS FROM HIERARCHICAL TRIPLES FORMED IN GLOBULAR CLUSTERS (2015, background): “Interestingly, such mergers have been suggested as a channel for the formation of compact-object mergers (Miller & Hamilton 2002; Wen 2003; Arca-Sedda 2016), and more recently as a channel for the formation of BSSs through mass transfer and merger (Perets & Fabrycky 2009; Leigh & Sills 2011; Geller…”
• The Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect and Its Applications (2016, background): “In some astrophysical settings higher PN orders of the inner orbit are important (e.g., Miller and Hamilton 2002; Blaes et al. 2002; Wen 2003; Seto 2013; Antognini et al. 2014).”
• Binary Mergers and Growth of Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters (2005, methodology): “Most analytic studies and numerical simulations so far assumed that all BHswere 10M (see, e.g., Miller & Hamilton 2002b; Portegies Zwart & McMillan 2000) or included just one large BH (GMH04).”