Metallicity-constrained merger rates of binary black holes and the stochastic gravitational wave background

Dvorkin, Irina; Vangioni, Elisabeth; Silk, Joseph; Uzan, Jean Philippe; Olive, Keith A.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stw1477

Cited by 119 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…For comparison, the stochastic background at 25 Hz inferred from GW150914 is ΩGW(25Hz) = 1.1 +2.7 −0.9 × 10 −9 at 90% confidence level, and the aLIGO/advanced Virgo network 1σ sensitivity (corresponding to SNR = 1) for two years of observation at design sensitivity (O5) is ΩGW(25Hz) = 6.6 × 10 −10 . The stochastic background produced by Pop III remnant mergers is therefore negligible at the relevant frequencies (compare Dvorkin et al 2016, but see Inayoshi et al 2016). …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitational waves from the remnants of the first stars

Hartwig

Volonteri

Bromm

et al. 2016

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters

164

149

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Gravitational waves (GWs) provide a revolutionary tool to investigate yet unobserved astrophysical objects. Especially the first stars, which are believed to be more massive than present-day stars, might be indirectly observable via the merger of their compact remnants. We develop a self-consistent, cosmologically representative, semi-analytical model to simulate the formation of the first stars. By extrapolating binary stellarevolution models at 10 % solar metallicity to metal-free stars, we track the individual systems until the coalescence of the compact remnants. We estimate the contribution of primordial stars to the merger rate density and to the detection rate of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO). Owing to their higher masses, the remnants of primordial stars produce strong GW signals, even if their contribution in number is relatively small. We find a probability of 1% that the current detection GW150914 is of primordial origin. We estimate that aLIGO will detect roughly 1 primordial BH-BH merger per year for the final design sensitivity, although this rate depends sensitively on the primordial initial mass function (IMF). Turning this around, the detection of black hole mergers with a total binary mass of ∼ 300 M would enable us to constrain the primordial IMF.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitational waves from the remnants of the first stars

Hartwig

Volonteri

Bromm

et al. 2016

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters

164

149

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“…While this assertion is supported in some models which take into account the explosion mechanism, the metallicity history and the time delay distribution (see e.g. [10,87]), it presents a source of additional uncertainty. In follow up work, our analysis can be extended by incorporating the dependence of the merger rate on both mass and metallicity, and following the cosmic history of star formation and metallicity distribution, as well as the distribution of the delay time between formation and merger of the binaries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black hole mass function from gravitational wave measurements

et al. 2017

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We examine how future gravitational-wave measurements from merging black holes (BHs) can be used to infer the shape of the black-hole mass function, with important implications for the study of star formation and evolution and the properties of binary BHs. We model the mass function as a power law, inherited from the stellar initial mass function, and introduce lower and upper mass cutoff parameterizations in order to probe the minimum and maximum BH masses allowed by stellar evolution, respectively. We initially focus on the heavier BH in each binary, to minimize model dependence. Taking into account the experimental noise, the mass measurement errors and the uncertainty in the redshift-dependence of the merger rate, we show that the mass function parameters, as well as the total rate of merger events, can be measured to < 10% accuracy within a few years of advanced LIGO observations at its design sensitivity. This can be used to address important open questions such as the upper limit on the stellar mass which allows for BH formation and to confirm or refute the currently observed mass gap between neutron stars and BHs. In order to glean information on the progenitors of the merging BH binaries, we then advocate the study of the two-dimensional mass distribution to constrain parameters that describe the two-body system, such as the mass ratio between the two BHs, in addition to the merger rate and mass function parameters. We argue that several years of data collection can efficiently probe models of binary formation, and show, as an example, that the hypothesis that some gravitational-wave events may involve primordial black holes can be tested. Finally, we point out that in order to maximize the constraining power of the data, it may be worthwhile to lower the signal-to-noise threshold imposed on each candidate event and amass a larger statistical ensemble of BH mergers.

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“…Since the first detection of GW150914, several investigations have examined how double black hole binaries could have been produced from the evolution of massive stars, whether from classical isolated evolution in low-metallicity environments (Belczynski et al 2016a;Eldridge & Stanway 2016); via the aid of rapid rotation and hence homogeneous chemical evolution Woosley 2016); via Population III stars (Hartwig et al 2016;Inayoshi et al 2016;Dvorkin et al 2016); or from dynamical formation in interacting environments (Mapelli 2016;Rodriguez et al 2016). Other more exotic scenarios have been introduced and discussed in the context of GW150914; dark matter primordial BH-BH formation (Sasaki et al 2016;Eroshenko 2016), formation of a BH-BH merger from a divided core of a massive rapidly rotating single star (Loeb 2016), or formation of BH-BH mergers with disks around BHs formed from fallback material in weak supernova explosions (Perna et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of pair-instability mass loss on black-hole mergers

Belczyński

Heger

Gładysz

et al. 2016

A&A

438

426

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Context. Mergers of two stellar origin black holes are a prime source of gravitational waves and are under intensive investigation. One crucial ingredient in their modeling has been neglected: pair-instability pulsation supernovae with associated severe mass loss may suppress the formation of massive black holes, decreasing black hole merger rates for the highest black hole masses. Aims. We demonstrate the effects of pair-instability pulsation supernovae on merger rate and mass using populations of double black hole binaries formed through the isolated binary classical evolution channel. Methods. The mass loss from pair-instability pulsation supernova is estimated based on existing hydrodynamical calculations. This mass loss is incorporated into the StarTrack population synthesis code. StarTrack is used to generate double black hole populations with and without pair-instability pulsation supernova mass loss. Results. The mass loss associated with pair-instability pulsation supernovae limits the Population I/II stellar-origin black hole mass to 50 M ⊙ , in tension with earlier predictions that the maximum black hole mass could be as high as 100 M ⊙ . In our model, neutron stars form with mass 1-2 M ⊙ , then we encounter the first mass gap at 2-5 M ⊙ with an absence of compact objects due to rapid supernova explosions, followed by the formation of black holes with mass 5-50 M ⊙ , with a second mass gap at 50-135 M ⊙ created by pairinstability pulsation supernovae and by pair-instability supernovae. Finally, black holes having masses above 135 M ⊙ may potentially form to arbitrarily high mass limited only by the extent of the initial mass function and the strength of stellar winds. Suppression of double black hole merger rates by pair-instability pulsation supernovae is negligible for our evolutionary channel. Our standard evolutionary model with the inclusion of pair-instability pulsation supernovae and pair-instability supernovae is fully consistent with the LIGO observations of black hole mergers: GW150914, GW151226, and LVT151012. The LIGO results are inconsistent with high ( 400 km s −1 ) BH natal kicks. We predict the detection of several, and up to as many as ∼ 60, BH-BH mergers with a total mass of 10-150 M ⊙ (most likely range: 20-80 M ⊙ ) in the forthcoming ∼ 60 effective days of the LIGO O2 observations, assuming the detectors reach the optimistic target O2 sensitivity. Conclusions.

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Metallicity-constrained merger rates of binary black holes and the stochastic gravitational wave background

Cited by 119 publications

References 76 publications

Gravitational waves from the remnants of the first stars

Gravitational waves from the remnants of the first stars

Black hole mass function from gravitational wave measurements

The effect of pair-instability mass loss on black-hole mergers

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