Magnetic massive stars as progenitors of "heavy" stellar-mass black holes

Abstract

The groundbreaking detection of gravitational waves produced by the inspiralling and coalescence of the black hole (BH) binary GW150914 confirms the existence of "heavy" stellar-mass BHs with masses >25 Msun. Initial modelling of the system by Abbott et al. (2016a) supposes that the formation of black holes with such large masses from the evolution of single massive stars is only feasible if the wind mass-loss rates of the progenitors were greatly reduced relative to the mass-loss rates of massive stars in the Galaxy, concluding that heavy BHs must form in low-metallicity (Z < 0.25-0.5 Zsun) environments. However, strong surface magnetic fields also provide a powerful mechanism for modifying mass loss and rotation of massive stars, independent of environmental metallicity (ud-Doula & Owocki 2002; ud-Doula et al. 2008). In this paper we explore the hypothesis that some heavy BHs, with masses >25 Msun such as those inferred to compose GW150914, could be the natural end-point of evolution of magnetic massive stars in a solar-metallicity environment. Using the MESA code, we developed a new grid of single, non-rotating, solar metallicity evolutionary models for initial ZAMS masses from 40-80 Msun that include, for the first time, the quenching of the mass loss due to a realistic dipolar surface magnetic field. The new models predict TAMS masses that are significantly greater than those from equivalent non-magnetic models, reducing the total mass lost by a strongly magnetized 80 Msun star during its main sequence evolution by 20 Msun. This corresponds approximately to the mass loss reduction expected from an environment with metallicity Z = 1/30 Zsun.

10 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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• The Formation of a 70 Msun Black Hole at High Metallicity
• The effects of surface fossil magnetic fields on massive star evolution: II. Implementation of magnetic braking in MESA and implications for the evolution of surface rotation in OB stars
• Explaining the differences in massive star models from various simulations
• Atmospheric NLTE models for the spectroscopic analysis of blue stars with winds. V. Complete comoving frame transfer, and updated modeling of X-ray emission
• New mass-loss rates of B supergiants from global wind models
• Discovery of magnetic A supergiants: the descendants of magnetic main sequence B stars
• Close binary evolution. III. Impact of tides, wind magnetic braking, and internal angular momentum transport
• Phase-dependent study of near-infrared disk emission lines in LB-1
• The effects of surface fossil magnetic fields on massive star evolution: III. The case of $\tau$ Sco
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• A combined HST and XMM-Newton campaign for the magnetic O9.7 V star HD 54879: towards constraining the weak-wind problem of massive stars
• Ultraviolet Line Profiles of Slowly Rotating Massive Star Winds Using the "Analytic Dynamical Magnetosphere" Formalism
• A 3D short-characteristics method for continuum and line scattering problems in the winds of hot stars
• A cautionary tale of interpreting O-C diagrams: period instability in a classical RR Lyr Star Z CVn mimicking as a distant companion
• Confirmation of xi^1 CMa's ultra-slow rotation: magnetic polarity reversal and a dramatic change in magnetospheric UV emission lines
• Implications of binary black hole detections on the merger rates of double neutron stars and neutron star-black holes