The first gravitational-wave source from the isolated evolution of two stars in the 40–100 solar mass range

By Krzysztof Belczyński, D. Holz, T. Bulik, R. O’Shaughnessy. Nature, 2016

671 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The merger of two massive (about 30 solar masses) black holes has been detected in gravitational waves. This discovery validates recent predictions that massive binary black holes would constitute the first detection. Previous calculations, however, have not sampled the relevant binary-black-hole progenitors—massive, low-metallicity binary stars—with sufficient accuracy nor included sufficiently realistic physics to enable robust predictions to better than several orders of magnitude. Here we report high-precision numerical simulations of the formation of binary black holes via the evolution of isolated binary stars, providing a framework within which to interpret the first gravitational-wave source, GW150914, and to predict the properties of subsequent binary-black-hole gravitational-wave events. Our models imply that these events form in an environment in which the metallicity is less than ten per cent of solar metallicity, and involve stars with initial masses of 40–100 solar masses that interact through mass transfer and a common-envelope phase. These progenitor stars probably formed either about 2 billion years or, with a smaller probability, 11 billion years after the Big Bang. Most binary black holes form without supernova explosions, and their spins are nearly unchanged since birth, but do not have to be parallel. The classical field formation of binary black holes we propose, with low natal kicks (the velocity of the black hole at birth) and restricted common-envelope evolution, produces approximately 40 times more binary-black-holes mergers than do dynamical formation channels involving globular clusters; our predicted detection rate of these mergers is comparable to that from homogeneous evolution channels. Our calculations predict detections of about 1,000 black-hole mergers per year with total masses of 20–80 solar masses once second-generation ground-based gravitational-wave observatories reach full sensitivity.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f593ee8a4c40d3ce4aadcf5a388d759cc25802c7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Michela Mapelli
2. N. Giacobbo
3. Ilya Mandel
4. Mario Spera
5. D. Holz
6. F. Rasio
7. F. Antonini
8. Maya Fishbach

Citations in the corpus

• The progenitors of compact-object binaries: impact of metallicity, common envelope and natal kicks (2018, background): “Previous studies (Belczynski et al. 2016; Lamberts et al. 2016; Mapelli et al. 2017) indicate that the distribution of delay times should approximately scale as t−1.”
• ILLUMINATING BLACK HOLE BINARY FORMATION CHANNELS WITH SPINS IN ADVANCED LIGO (2016, background): “…BBHs are formed from isolated stellar binaries, usually involving either a commonenvelope phase (e.g., Voss & Tauris 2003; Dominik et al. 2012, 2013; Belczynski et al. 2016) or chemicallyhomogeneous evolution due to rapid stellar rotation (e.g. De Mink & Mandel 2016; Mandel & De Mink 2016;…”
• Constraints from Gravitational-wave Detections of Binary Black Hole Mergers on the 12C(α, γ)16O Rate (2020, background): “Mergers in this mass range are expected to be rare due to the difficulty in producing sufficiently massive stars in close binaries (Belczynski et al. 2016a), but they may be detectable by third-generation gravitational-wave detectors (Mangiagli et al. 2019).”
• Are LIGO's Black Holes Made from Smaller Black Holes? (2017, background): “Various formation channels have been proposed for the component black holes in these binaries (Belczynski et al. 2016; Rodriguez et al. 2016b; de Mink & Mandel 2016; Bird et al. 2016; Clesse & García-Bellido 2017; Antonini & Rasio 2016; Inayoshi et al. 2017), and these can be broadly separated into…”
• The cosmic merger rate of neutron stars and black holes (2018, background): “Since then, many studies (Belczynski et al. 2016; Dvorkin et al. 2016; Elbert et al. 2018; Lamberts et al. 2016; O’Shaughnessy et al. 2017; Lamberts et al. 2018; Cao et al. 2018) have focused on the cosmic merger rate of BHBs adopting a number of approaches.”
• MOCCA-SURVEY Database - I. Coalescing binary black holes originating from globular clusters (2016, background): “The rate density of the field binaries can be much higher - see e.g. Belczynski et al. (2016).”
• Merging black holes in young star clusters (2019, methodology): “The mass of the primary spans from 35 to 90 M , with five BHs more massive than 60 M (these lie in the mass gap produced by PPISNe and PISNe).”
• Radiation Backgrounds at Cosmic Dawn: X-Rays from Compact Binaries (2016, methodology): “In these calculations, the classical field formation mechanisms produces about 40 times more binary black hole systems than the dynamical formation channels involving globular clusters (Belczynski et al. 2016).”
• The spin of the second-born black hole in coalescing binary black holes (2018, background): “In the “CE” isolated field binary formation channel (e.g., see Belczynski et al. 2016), a binary consisting of two massive H-rich stars in a wide orbit evolve from Zero Age Main Sequence (ZAMS).”
• Constraining Formation Models of Binary Black Holes with Gravitational-wave Observations (2017, methodology): “Though X-ray binary observations (Repetto et al. 2017) and the current catalog of BBH observations (Belczynski et al. 2016) provide moderate evidence for certain black hole natal kick prescriptions, we use a uniform prior on the kick prescription, which for this discrete parameter puts equal weight…”
• Very massive stars, pair-instability supernovae and intermediate-mass black holes with the sevn code (2017, methodology): “Most models of the BH mass spectrum include the effect of core-collapse SNe but neglect the impact of pairinstability SNe (PISNe, Fowler & Hoyle 1964) and pulsational PISNe (PPISNe), with few remarkable exceptions (Woosley 2017; Belczynski et al. 2016b).”
• Double neutron stars: merger rates revisited (2017, methodology): “Methods in Belczynski et al. (2016a) for the full list).”
• Evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates for LIGO/Virgo binary black holes (2017, methodology): “8 or 9 or de Mink & Belczynski 2015; Belczynski et al. 2016a).”