Repeated mergers and ejection of black holes within nuclear star clusters

Abstract

Current stellar evolution models predict a dearth of black holes (BHs) with masses $\gtrsim 50$ M${}_{\odot }$ and $\lesssim 5$ M${}_{\odot }$, and intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; $\sim 10^2-10^5$ M${}_{\odot }$) have not yet been detected beyond any reasonable doubt. A natural way to form massive BHs is through repeated mergers, detectable via gravitational wave emission with current LIGO/Virgo or future LISA and ET observations. Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) have masses and densities high enough to retain most of the merger products, which acquire a recoil kick at the moment of merger. We explore the possibility that IMBHs may be born as a result of repeated mergers in NSCs, and show how their formation pathways depend on the NSC mass and density, and BH spin distribution. We find that BHs in the pair-instability mass gap can be formed and observed by LIGO/Virgo, and show that the typical mass of the ejected massive BHs is $400$--$500$ M${}_{\odot }$, with velocities of up to a few thousand km s${}^{-1}$. Eventually some of these IMBHs can become the seeds of supermassive BHs, observed today in the centers of galaxies. In dwarf galaxies, they could potentially solve the abundance, core-cusp, too-big-to-fail, ultra-faint, and baryon-fraction issues via plausible feedback scenarios.

15 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, accepted by MNRAS

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