Contribution of High-Mass Black Holes to Mergers of Compact Binaries

Abstract

We consider the merging of high-mass black-hole binaries of the Cyg X-1 type, in which the O-star companion becomes a neutron star following a supernova explosion. Our estimated rate of mergers, $\sim 2\times 10^{-5}y{r}^{-1}$ for the Galaxy, is relatively low because of the paucity of high-mass black holes. None the less, because of their high masses, these black-hole, neutron-star binaries could contribute importantly to the merging sought by LIGO. From stellar evolutionary calculations including mass loss, we estimate that a ZAMS mass of $\sim 80 \msun$ is necessary before a high-mass black hole can result in a massive binary. We estimate the detection rate for LIGO of high-mass black hole neutron-star mergers to be a factor $\sim 40$ greater than that for binary neutron stars. We suggest how our high cut-off mass can be reconciled with the requirements of nucleosynthesis, and show that a bimodal distribution with masses of black holes can account, at least qualitatively, for the many transient sources which contain high-mass black holes.

35 pages and 1 postscript figure, to be published in A&A

References in corpus (8)

• Neutron Star Mass Measurements. I. Radio Pulsars
• Evolution of Binary Compact Objects Which Merge
• Kaons in dense matter, kaon production in heavy-ion collisions, and kaon condensation in neutron stars
• Kaon production in heavy-ion collisions and maximum mass of neutron stars
• Formation and coalescence of relativistic binary stars: effect of kick velocity
• Neutron Star Population Dynamics.I: Millisecond Pulsars
• Computing the merger of black-hole binaries: the IBBH problem
• A New Approach to Determine the Initial Mass Function in the Solar Neighborhood

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Black hole mergers in the universe
• Closing in on a Short-Hard Burst Progenitor: Constraints from Early-Time Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy of a Possible Host Galaxy of GRB 050509b
• Black Hole - Neutron Star Mergers as Central Engines of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Gravitational Wave Astronomy: in Anticipation of First Sources to be Detected
• Formation of High Mass X-ray Black Hole Binaries
• Dynamics of black hole - neutron star binaries in young star clusters
• A Chandra High-Resolution Camera Observation of X-Ray Point Sources in M31
• Pulsar-Black Hole Binaries in the Galactic Center
• How is Binary Radio-Pulsars with Black Holes Population Rich?
• Detection of compact objects by means of gravitational lensing in binary systems
• Discovery of the neutron stars merger GW170817/GRB170817A and Binary Stellar Evolution
• Evolution of Black Holes in the Galaxy
• Turbulence Mode Decomposition and Anisotropy in Magnetically Dominated Collisionless Plasmas