Bulge Fossil Fragments as a new population of factories of gravitational wave sources in the Galaxy
arXiv:2603.25127 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202556993
Abstract
The discovery of the complex stellar populations hosted in two massive stellar systems in the Galactic bulge, namely Terzan5 and Liller 1, posed intriguing questions about their origin. Despite their globular cluster appearance, they host sub-populations with significantly different ages (several Gyrs) and metallicities (about 1 dex) tracing a chemical abundance pattern that is consistent only with that observed in the bulge. These surprising properties can be naturally explained in the context of a self-enrichment scenario, opening the possibility that they could be the remnants of primordial massive structures that contributed to the bulge formation (the so-called Bulge Fossil Fragments, BFFs) capable of retaining supernova ejecta within their potential well. In this paper we present a first attempt to quantify the expected contribution of BFFs to the gravitational wave emission. In particular, by adopting Terzan5 as prototype of BFF, using its chemical evolutionary model, and following a scaling relation derived for globular clusters, we present a first-guess estimate of the number of binary black hole (BH) mergers expected in this stellar system. Within the adopted simplifying assumptions and the uncertainties about the initial conditions of the proto-Terzan 5 system, we find that several hundreds of binary BH mergers are expected, a number that is between 15 and 250 times larger than that produced by a typical globular cluster. Hence, this study identifies in the BFF family a new population of stellar systems potentially able to produce a significant number of gravitational wave emitters, that has not been considered in any previous investigation. Moreover we speculate that they could also be the natural place where BHs with masses above 60 Msun and even intermediate-mass BHs can form via repeated dynamical interactions.
arXiv commentIn press in Astronomy and Astrophysics
References in corpus (77)
- Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
- On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
- Gravitational Waves and Gamma-rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A
- How Massive Single Stars End their Life
- Comprehensive analytic formulae for stellar evolution as a function of mass and metallicity
- GW190425: Observation of a Compact Binary Coalescence with Total Mass
- Nucleosynthesis in Chandrasekhar Mass Models for Type Ia Supernovae and Constraints on Progenitor Systems and Burning-Front Propagation
- Star Formation Histories, Abundances and Kinematics of Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Group
- Supernovae, Jets, and Collapsars
- Observation of gravitational waves from two neutron star-black hole coalescences
- Updated stellar yields from Asymptotic Giant Branch models
- Gaia EDR3 view on Galactic globular clusters
- Twenty-One Millisecond Pulsars in Terzan 5 Using the Green Bank Telescope
- The cluster Terzan 5 as a remnant of a primordial building block of the Galactic bulge
- Gas Physics, Disk Fragmentation, and Bulge Formation in Young Galaxies
- MOCCA Code for Star Cluster Simulations - IV. A new Scenario for Intermediate Mass Black Hole Formation in Globular Clusters
- Bulge and Clump Evolution in Hubble Ultra Deep Field Clump Clusters, Chains and Spiral Galaxies
- Inverse dynamical population synthesis: Constraining the initial conditions of young stellar clusters by studying their binary populations
- The Structure and Environment of Young Stellar Clusters in Spiral Galaxies
- Clumpy Galaxies in GOODS and GEMS: Massive Analogs of Local Dwarf Irregulars
- Super and Massive AGB Stars: II - Nucleosynthesis and Yields - Z=0.02, 0.008 and 0.004
- Unstable disks at high redshift: Evidence for smooth accretion in galaxy formation
- MOCCA Code for Star Cluster Simulations - II. Comparison with N-body Simulations
- On the Rate of Neutron Star Binary Mergers from Globular Clusters
- MOCCA code for star cluster simulations - I. Blue Stragglers, first results
- Light, Alpha, and Fe-Peak Element Abundances in the Galactic Bulge
- Spectroscopy Unveils the Complex Nature of Terzan 5
- Stellar density profile and mass of the Milky Way Bulge from VVV data
- Super and massive AGB stars - III. Nucleosynthesis in metal-poor and very metal-poor stars - Z=0.001 and 0.0001
- New density profile and structural parameters of the complex stellar system Terzan 5
- Post-Newtonian Dynamics in Dense Star Clusters: Binary Black Holes in the LISA Band
- Faint X-ray Sources in the Globular Cluster Terzan 5
- Gas expulsion in massive star clusters? Constraints from observations of young and gas-free objects
- Ceci n'est pas a globular cluster: the metallicity distribution of the stellar system Terzan 5
- Near Infrared properties of 12 Globular Clusters toward the inner Bulge of the Galaxy
- The Terzan 5 puzzle: discovery of a third, metal-poor component
- A near-infrared spectroscopic screening of the red giant populations in omega Centauri
- Hubble Space Telescope Proper motion (HSTPROMO) Catalogs of Galactic Globular Clusters. VI. Improved data reduction and internal-kinematic analysis of NGC 362
- Binary Black Hole Mergers from Globular Clusters: the Impact of Globular Cluster Properties
- High resolution infrared spectra of bulge globular clusters: The extreme chemical abundances of Terzan 4 and Terzan 5
- The age of the young bulge-like population in the stellar system Terzan5: linking the Galactic bulge to the high-z Universe
- Intermediate mass black holes from stellar mergers in young star clusters
- The Accreted Nuclear Clusters of the Milky Way
- The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters - XV. The dynamical clock: reading cluster dynamical evolution from the segregation level of blue straggler stars
- ISOCAM observations of Galactic Globular Clusters: mass loss along the Red Giant Branch
- MIKiS: the Multi-Instrument Kinematic Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters. I. Velocity dispersion profiles and rotation signals of 11 globular clusters
- The Blue Straggler Population of the Globular Cluster M5
- A deep view into the nucleus of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy with MUSE. I. Data and stellar population characterization
- Discovery of three new millisecond pulsars in Terzan 5
- Chemical evolution of Local Group dwarf galaxies in a cosmological context -- I. A new modelling approach and its application to the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy
- A new class of fossil fragments from the hierarchical assembly of the Galactic bulge
- The strong rotation of M5 (NGC 5904) as seen from the MIKiS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters
- The star clusters that make black hole binaries across cosmic time
- Chemical enrichment in very low-metallicity environments: Bootes I
- A panchromatic view of the bulge globular cluster NGC 6569
- Ultra-deep GEMINI near-infrared observations of the bulge globular cluster NGC 6624
- MOCCA SURVEY Database I: Binary Black Hole Mergers from Globular Clusters with Intermediate Mass Black Holes
- The Effect of Distant Encounters on Black Hole Binaries in Globular Clusters: Systematic Increase of In-cluster Mergers in the LISA band
- Discovery and timing of ten new millisecond pulsars in the globular cluster Terzan 5
- A new model for the multiple stellar populations within Terzan 5
- Discovery of a double sequence of blue straggler stars in the core-collapsed globular cluster NGC 6256
- First evidence of multi-iron sub-populations in the Bulge Fossil Fragment candidate Liller 1
- Digging into the Galactic Bulge: stellar population and structure of the poorly studied cluster NGC 6316
- High-resolution extinction map in the direction of the strongly obscured bulge fossil fragment Liller 1
- Nuclear Star Clusters in Cosmological Simulations
- Clues to the formation of Liller 1 from modeling its complex star formation history
- A 3D view of multiple populations kinematics in Galactic globular clusters
- JWST uncovers helium and water abundance variations in the bulge globular cluster NGC 6440
- High-resolution extinction map in the direction of the bulge globular cluster NGC 6440
- Modeling the chemical enrichment history of the Bulge Fossil Fragment Terzan 5
- Internal kinematics and structure of the bulge globular cluster NGC 6569
- The ESO-VLT MIKiS survey reloaded: exploring the internal kinematics of NGC 6440
- Is Terzan 5 the remnant of a building block of the Galactic bulge? Evidence from APOGEE
- A Photometric in-depth look at the core-collapsed globular cluster NGC 6284
- The Bulge Cluster Origin (BulCO) survey at the ESO-VLT: probing the early history of the Milky Way assembling. Design and first results in Liller1
- On the manifest link between Terzan 5 and the Galactic bulge
- The bulge globular cluster Terzan 6 as seen from multi-conjugate adaptive optics and HST