ACCELERATING COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS IN TRIPLE SYSTEMS WITH THE KOZAI RESONANCE: A MECHANISM FOR “PROMPT” TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE, GAMMA-RAY BURSTS, AND OTHER EXOTICA

By T. Thompson. 2010

206 citations recorded by the source corpus.

White dwarf–white dwarf (WD–WD) and neutron star–neutron star (NS–NS) mergers may produce Type Ia supernovae and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), respectively. A general problem is how to produce binaries with semi-major axes small enough to merge in significantly less than the Hubble time (tH), and thus accommodate the observation that these events closely follow episodes of star formation. I explore the possibility that such systems are not binaries at all, but actually coeval, or dynamical formed, triple systems. The tertiary induces Kozai oscillations in the inner binary, driving it to high eccentricity, and reducing its gravitational wave (GW) merger timescale. This effect significantly increases the allowed range of binary period P such that the merger time is tmerge < tH. In principle, Chandrasekhar-mass binaries with P ∼ 300 days can merge in ≲ tH if they contain a prograde solar-mass tertiary at high enough inclination. For retrograde tertiaries, the maximum P such that tmerge ≲ tH is yet larger. In contrast, P ≲ 0.3 days is required in the absence of a tertiary. I discuss implications of these findings for the production of transients formed via compact object binary mergers. Based on the statistics of solar-type binaries, I argue that many such binaries should be in triple systems affected by the Kozai resonance. If true, expectations for the mHz GW signal from individual sources, the diffuse background, and the foreground for GW experiments like LISA are modified. This work motivates future studies of triples systems of A, B, and O stars, and new types of searches for WD–WD binaries in triple systems.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d493de6febb83f1bdaa086d6a292a9c3b8f6ecff

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Citations in the corpus

Timescales of Kozai-Lidov oscillations at quadrupole and octupole order in the test particle limit (2015, background): “…et al. 2011, 2012; Petrovich 2015), the formation of blue stragglers (Perets & Fabrycky 2009; 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…”
The Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect and Its Applications (2016, methodology): “ considered rst by Harrington (1968), compared to Raghavan et al. (2010) observations. The top two panels and the Monte-Carlo simulations are adopted from Naoz and Fabrycky (2014). and Fabrycky 2009; Thompson 2011; Shappee and Thompson 2013; Naoz and Fabrycky 2014). We show here the updated inner or”
SECULAR EVOLUTION OF COMPACT BINARIES NEAR MASSIVE BLACK HOLES: GRAVITATIONAL WAVE SOURCES AND OTHER EXOTICA (2012, background): “…effect of SMBHs on binaries provide an efficient channel for the formation of close binaries and their products, such as X-ray binaries as well supernovae and gamma ray bursts (following the merger of two WDs or NS, or through the formation of a WD accreting binary; see also Thompson 2011).”
Mind Your Ps and Qs: The Interrelation between Period (P) and Mass-ratio (Q) Distributions of Binary Stars (2016, background): “If instead the inner binary first evolves into a pair of compact remnants, for example, the tertiary may accelerate the merger of the two compact objects and lead to the formation of a Type Ia supernova or short gamma-ray burst (Thompson 2011).”
Eccentric Black Hole Gravitational-wave Capture Sources in Galactic Nuclei: Distribution of Binary Parameters (2017, background): “Further, BH binaries can capture triple companions via dynamical encounters in dense stellar systems such as globular clusters (GCs; Wen 2003; Thompson 2011; Aarseth 2012; Antonini et al. 2014, 2016; Breivik et al. 2016; Rodriguez et al. 2016a, 2016b) and in isolated triples in the field (Silsbee &…”
ECCENTRICITY GROWTH AND ORBIT FLIP IN NEAR-COPLANAR HIERARCHICAL THREE-BODY SYSTEMS (2013, background): “, Type 1a supernovae (Katz & Dong 2012), star-star collisions (e.g. Perets & Fabrycky (2009); Thompson (2011); Katz & Dong (2012); Shappee & Thompson (2013); Naoz et al. (2013a); Naoz & Fabrycky (submitted)) and gravitational wave sources (O’Leary et al. 2009; Kocsis & Levin 2012).”
BLACK HOLE MERGERS AND BLUE STRAGGLERS FROM HIERARCHICAL TRIPLES FORMED IN GLOBULAR CLUSTERS (2015, background): “…can produce a variety of exotic astrophysical phenomena, including compact-object and stellar binary mergers (e.g., Ford et al. 2004; Miller & Hamilton 2002; Antonini et al. 2010; Naoz & Fabrycky 2014), X-ray binaries, type Ia supernovae and Gamma-ray bursts (Thompson 2011; Hamers et al. 2013).”
Secular Dynamics in Hierarchical Three-Body Systems (2011, methodology): “…(Kozai 1962; Lidov 1962, see below), have been proposed as an important element in the evolution of triple stars (e.g. Harrington 1969; Mazeh and Shaham 1979; Söderhjelm 1982; Kiseleva et al. 1998; Fabrycky and Tremaine 2007; Perets and Fabrycky 2009; Thompson 2011; Shappee and Thompson 2012).”
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.”
The delay-time distribution of Type Ia supernovae from Sloan II (2012, unknown): “Thompson (2011) has proposed that a large fraction of SN Ia progenitor systems are triples, in which a low-mass tertiary induces ellipticity in the inner WD binary via the Kozai (1962) mechanism, significantly increasing the time-integrated number of DD systems that merge (and presumably produce…”
On the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2018, unknown): “The idea that a third, main-sequence star, in a hierarchical-triple system containing a binary WD can induce Kozai-Lidov oscillations in the inner binary, driving it to high eccentricity and collision, was first introduced by Thompson (2011).”
Binary Black Hole Mergers from Field Triples: Properties, Rates, and the Impact of Stellar Evolution (2017, background): “…(iv) the evolution of isolated triples in galactic fields (Silsbee & Tremaine 2016), leading to a merger of the inner binary through the Lidov-Kozai mechanism (LK; Lidov 1962; Kozai 1962) coupled with energy loss due to GW radiation (e.g., Thompson 2011; Antonini et al. 2014; Kimpson et al. 2016).”
Black Hole Mergers in Galactic Nuclei Induced by the Eccentric Kozai–Lidov Effect (2017, methodology): “Merging Channels The EKL mechanism has been shown to play an important role in producing short period binaries and merged systems (e.g., Thompson 2011; Naoz et al. 2011; Antonini & Perets 2012; Prodan et al. 2013; Naoz & Fabrycky 2014; Prodan et al. 2015; Antonini & Rasio 2016; Stephan et al. 2016;…”
Observational Clues to the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2013, methodology): “A different implementation of the collisional DD scenario was raised by Thompson (2011), who proposed that many binary WDs may actually be in “hierarchical triple” systems, with a third, low-mass star in orbit about the inner WD binary.”
BLACK HOLE TRIPLE DYNAMICS: A BREAKDOWN OF THE ORBIT AVERAGE APPROXIMATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTIONS (2013, background): “A number of papers have considered the Kozai resonance as a mechanism for accelerating compact object mergers in triple systems (e.g., Blaes et al. 2002; Miller & Hamilton 2002a; Wen 2003; Thompson 2011; Prodan et al. 2013a).”