Mergers of supermassive and intermediate-mass black holes in galactic nuclei from disruptions of star clusters

Abstract

Gravitational waves (GWs) offer an unprecedented opportunity to survey the sky and detect mergers of compact objects. While intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) have not been detected beyond any reasonable doubt with either dynamical or accretion signatures, the GW landscape appears very promising. Mergers of an IMBH with a supermassive black hole (SMBH) will be primary sources for the planned space-based mission LISA and could be observed up to the distant Universe. SMBH-IMBH binaries can be formed as a result of the migration and merger of stellar clusters at the center of galaxies, where an SMBH lurks. We build for the first time a semi-analytical framework to model this scenario, and find that the the comoving merger rate of SMBH-IMBH binaries is $\sim 10^{-4}$ Gpc${}^{-3}$ yr${}^{-1}$ in the local Universe for a unity IMBH occupation fraction, scales linearly with it, and has a peak at $z\approx 0.5$-$2$. Our model predicts $\sim 0.1$ event yr${}^{-1}$ within redshift $z\approx 3.5$ if $10\%$ of the inspiralled star clusters hosted an IMBH, while $\sim 1$ events yr${}^{-1}$ for a unity occupation fraction. More than $90\%$ of these systems will be detectable with LISA with a signal-to-noise ratio larger than $10$, promising to potentially find a family of IMBHs.

arXiv comment9 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (71)

• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• A Fundamental Relation Between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• The slope of the black-hole mass versus velocity dispersion correlation
• The size distribution of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Formation of Supermassive Black Holes
• Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
• The runaway growth of intermediate-mass black holes in dense star clusters
• The construction and use of LISA sensitivity curves
• Production of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in Globular Clusters
• The Ages of 55 Globular Clusters as Determined Using an Improved delta V_TO^HB Method Along with Color-Magnitude Diagram Constraints, and Their Implications for Broader Issues
• Evolution of galaxy stellar masses and star formation rates in the EAGLE simulations
• Formation of Massive Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters. I. Mass Segregation and Core Collapse
• Merging black hole binaries in galactic nuclei: implications for advanced-LIGO detections
• Nuclear Star Clusters
• Binary Mergers and Growth of Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters
• Distances and ages of NGC 6397, NGC 6752 and 47 Tuc
• Ages of Globular Clusters from Hipparcos Parallaxes of Local Subdwarfs
• MOCCA Code for Star Cluster Simulations - IV. A new Scenario for Intermediate Mass Black Hole Formation in Globular Clusters
• Runaway collisions in young star clusters. II. Numerical results
• Black hole growth through hierarchical black hole mergers in dense star clusters: implications for gravitational wave detections
• The mass function of young star clusters in spiral galaxies
• HST/STIS Spectra of Nuclear Star Clusters in Spiral Galaxies: Dependence of Age and Mass On Hubble Type
• Dissipationless Formation and Evolution of the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster
• Masses and Scaling Relations for Nuclear Star Clusters, and their Coexistence with Central Black Holes
• Co-Evolution of Galactic Nuclei and Globular Cluster Systems
• Intermediate-mass black holes in dwarf galaxies out to redshift $\sim$ 2.4 in the Chandra COSMOS Legacy Survey
• Co-evolution of nuclear star clusters, massive black holes and their host galaxies
• The formation and hierarchical assembly of globular cluster populations
• Origin and growth of nuclear star clusters around massive black holes
• Hierarchical black hole mergers in young, globular and nuclear star clusters: the effect of metallicity, spin and cluster properties
• Populating the upper black hole mass gap through stellar collisions in young star clusters
• The ecology of star clusters and intermediate mass black holes in the Galactic bulge
• The Luminosity, Mass, and Age Distributions of Compact Star Clusters in M83 Based on HST/WFC3 Observations
• Formation of Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei: Runaway Tidal Encounters
• Gravitational Waves and Intermediate-mass Black Hole Retention in Globular Clusters
• Dynamical friction and the evolution of Supermassive Black hole Binaries: the final hundred-parsec problem
• Repeated mergers and ejection of black holes within nuclear star clusters
• Stellar populations and star formation histories of the nuclear star clusters in six nearby galaxies
• Gravitational wave sources from inspiralling globular clusters in the Galactic Centre and similar environments
• The early evolution of the star cluster mass function
• The Growth Efficiency of High-Redshift Black Holes
• Intermediate-mass Black Holes from High Massive-star Binary Fractions in Young Star Clusters
• Repeated mergers, mass-gap black holes, and formation of intermediate-mass black holes in nuclear star clusters
• Detectability of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in Multiband Gravitational Wave Astronomy
• A new channel to form IMBHs throughout cosmic time
• On the coexistence of stellar-mass and intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters
• The Disruption of Stellar Clusters Containing Massive Black Holes near the Galactic Center
• Self-consistent simulations of Nuclear Cluster formation through Globular Cluster orbital decay and merging
• The MEGaN project II. Gravitational waves from intermediate mass- and binary black holes around a supermassive black hole
• Intermediate mass black holes from stellar mergers in young star clusters
• Intermediate Mass Black Hole Induced Quenching of Mass Segregation in Star Clusters
• The Structure of Nuclear Star Clusters in Nearby Late-type Spiral Galaxies from Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Imaging
• A Dynamical Survey of Stellar-Mass Black Holes in 50 Milky Way Globular Clusters
• Tidal Disruption Events and Gravitational Waves from Intermediate-mass Black Holes in Evolving Globular Clusters Across Space and Time
• Making a supermassive star by stellar bombardment
• Effects of Intermediate Mass Black Holes on Nuclear Star Clusters
• Discovery of RR Lyrae Stars in the Nuclear Bulge of the Milky Way
• Pair-Instability Supernovae via Collision Runaway in Young Dense Star Clusters
• A Catalog of Hyper-luminous X-ray Sources and Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Candidates out to High Redshifts
• Black Hole Mergers from Star Clusters with Top-Heavy Initial Mass Functions
• Variability-selected intermediate mass black hole candidates in dwarf galaxies from ZTF and WISE
• Formation of super-massive black holes in galactic nuclei I: delivering seed intermediate-mass black holes in massive stellar clusters
• Relativistic Tidal Disruption and Nuclear Ignition of White Dwarf Stars by Intermediate Mass Black Holes
• Supermassive black holes coalescence mediated by massive perturbers: implications for gravitational waves emission and nuclear cluster formation
• Disentangling the formation mechanisms of nuclear star clusters
• A broadband X-ray spectral study of the intermediate-mass black hole candidate M82 X-1 with NuSTAR, Chandra and Swift
• On the relation between the mass of Compact Massive Objects and their host galaxies
• Formation of supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei II: retention and growth of seed intermediate-mass black holes
• Globular clusters hosting intermediate-mass black-holes: no mass-segregation based candidates
• Ejection of Hyper-Velocity Stars from the Galactic Centre by Intermediate-Mass Black Holes

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna: Mission Studies and Science Case
• Growing Black Holes through Successive Mergers in Galactic Nuclei: I. Methods and First Results
• A Case for a Binary Black Hole System Revealed via Quasi-Periodic Outflows
• Constraints on the Galactic Centre environment from \textit{Gaia} hypervelocity stars III: Insights on a possible companion to Sgr A*
• Constraining the cosmic merger history of intermediate-mass black holes with gravitational wave detectors
• LISA Constraints on an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in the Galactic Centre
• Astrophysics with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Partial Tidal Disruption Events by Intermediate-mass Black Holes in Supermassive and Intermediate-mass Black Hole Binaries
• Discovery of a Dense Association of Stars in the Vicinity of the Supermassive Black Hole Sgr A*
• Prospects for joint multiband detection of intermediate-mass black holes by LGWA and the Einstein Telescope
• The Steady State of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Near a Supermassive Black Hole