http://arxiv.org/abs/1709.01660
Few-body scatterings involving $N$ black holes (BHs) can under rare circumstances undergo a cascade of up to $N-1$ successive gravitational wave (GW) mergers. In this paper, we focus on the $N=3$ case, for which we show how binary-single interactions can lead to two successive GW mergers. The first GW merger happens during the three-body interaction through a two-body GW capture, where the second GW merger is between the BH formed in the first GW merger and the remaining bound single BH. We demonstrate that the time span between the two GW mergers can be surprisingly short in near co-planar interactions, as a result of a near cancellation of the total three-body angular momentum. For such interactions, a non-negligible fraction of the double GW mergers will have a time span from first to second GW merger in the observable range of $0-10$ years. Double GW mergers can be used to probe environments facilitating co-planar interactions, as well as provide information about the merging BHs beyond what can be learned in the standard case of two unrelated GW mergers.
J. Samsing and T. Ilan
Thu, 7 Sep 17
10/65
Comments: 8 pages, 5 figures. comments welcome
You must be logged in to post a comment.