Journal article
Dynamical formation signatures of black hole binaries in the first detected mergers by Ligo
- Abstract:
- The dynamical formation of stellar-mass black hole–black hole binaries has long been a promising source of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mass segregation, gravitational focusing, and multibody dynamical interactions naturally increase the interaction rate between the most massive black holes in dense stellar systems, eventually leading them to merge. We find that dynamical interactions, particularly three-body binary formation, enhance the merger rate of black hole binaries with total mass Mtot roughly as $\propto {M}_{{\rm{tot}}}^{\beta }$, with β gsim 4. We find that this relation holds mostly independently of the initial mass function, but the exact value depends on the degree of mass segregation. The detection rate of such massive black hole binaries is only further enhanced by LIGO's greater sensitivity to massive black hole binaries with Mtot lesssim 80 ${M}_{\odot }$. We find that for power-law BH mass functions dN/dM ∝ M−α with α ≤ 2, LIGO is most likely to detect black hole binaries with a mass twice that of the maximum initial black hole mass and a mass ratio near one. Repeated mergers of black holes inside the cluster result in about ~5% of mergers being observed between two and three times the maximum initial black hole mass. Using these relations, one may be able to invert the observed distribution to the initial mass function with multiple detections of merging black hole binaries.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Accepted manuscript, 935.8KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.3847/2041-8205/824/1/L12
Authors
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing
- Journal:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters More from this journal
- Volume:
- 824
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- L12
- Publication date:
- 2016-06-08
- Acceptance date:
- 2016-04-05
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2041-8213
- ISSN:
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2041-8205
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1128005
- Local pid:
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pubs:1128005
- Deposit date:
-
2020-08-24
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- American Astronomical Society
- Copyright date:
- 2016
- Rights statement:
- © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
- Notes:
- This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available online from IOP Publishing at: https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8205/824/1/L12
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