http://arxiv.org/abs/1901.03345
Prior to the detection of black holes (BHs) via the gravitational waves (GWs) they generate at merger, the presence of BHs was inferred in X-ray binaries, mostly via dynamical measurements, with measured masses in the range between $\sim 5-20~M_\odot$. The LIGO discovery of the first BHs via GWs was surprising in that the two BHs that merged had masses of 35.6 and 28.6 $M_\odot$, which are both above the range inferred from X-ray binaries. With 10 binary BH detections to date, it has become apparent that, while the two distributions are not disjoint, they are most certainly distinct. In this Letter, we suggest that the reason for the apparent dichotomy is due to a predominance of different formation channels: isolated binary evolution for X-ray binaries, and dynamical exchanges in dense star clusters for the LIGO BHs. We show, via timescale arguments, that BHs in high-masss X-ray binaries are preferentially seen when they have lower mass accretors. We then perform high-resolution N-body simulations of a cluster of isolated BHs with a range of initial mass spectra, and show that BH binaries are preferentially formed by the most massive BHs, and additionally that these tend to be the tightest binaries (hence with shorter merger timescales). We also perform a simulation with neutron stars (NSs) in addition to BHs, more abundant by a factor of 5, and show that the formation of NS-BH binaries is $< 1\%$ that of BH-BH binaries, hence making the dynamical formation of NS-BH systems much less likely than that of binary BHs.
R. Perna, Y. Wang, N. Leigh, et. al.
Mon, 14 Jan 19
11/43
Comments: Submitted to ApJL (on January 8th 2019)
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