Outflow-Driven Transients from the Birth of Binary Black Holes I: Tidally-Locked Secondary Supernovae

Abstract

We propose a new type of electromagnetic transients associated with the birth of binary black holes (BBHs), which may lead to merger events accompanied by gravitational waves in $\sim 0.1-1$ Gyr. We consider the newborn BBHs formed through the evolution of isolated massive stellar binaries. For a close massive binary, consisting of a primary black hole (BH) and a secondary Wolf-Rayet (WR) star that are orbiting around each other, the spin period of the WR star can be tidally synchronized to its orbital period. Then, the angular momentum of the outer material of the WR star is large enough to form an accretion disk around a newborn, secondary BH, following its core-collapse. This disk may produce an energetic outflow with a kinetic energy of $\sim 10^{50}-10^{52}$ erg and an outflow velocity of $\sim 10^{10}\mathrm{cm}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, resulting in an optical transient with an absolute magnitude from $\sim -14$ to $\sim -17$ with a duration of around a day. This type of transient also produces detectable radio signals $\sim 1-10$ years after the birth of BBHs, via synchrotron emission from non-thermal electrons accelerated at external shocks. The predicted optical transients have a shorter duration than ordinary core-collapse supernovae. Dedicated optical transient surveys can detect them, and distinguish it from ordinary SNe using the different features of its light curve and late-time spectrum. In the paper I, we investigate disk-driven outflows from the secondary BH, whereas possible signals from the primary BH will be discussed in the paper II.

v3: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. arXiv:1702.07337v2 was split into two papers according to referee's suggestion. This is Paper I. See also arXiv:1711.01015 for Paper II

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• Outflow Bubbles from Compact Binary Mergers Embedded in Active Galactic Nuclei: Cavity Formation and the Impact on Electromagnetic Counterparts
• Micro Tidal Disruption Events in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Binary Black Hole Mergers within the LIGO Horizon: Statistical Properties and prospects for detecting Electromagnetic Counterparts
• Radio Emission from Accreting Isolated Black Holes in Our Galaxy
• AT2018lqh: Black Hole Born from a Rotating Star?
• Outflow-Driven Transients from the Birth of Binary Black Holes II: Primary-Induced Accretion Transients