Stable Mass Transfer Can Explain Massive Binary Black Hole Mergers with a High-spin Component

Recent gravitational-wave observations showed that binary black hole (BBH) mergers with massive components are more likely to have high effective spins. In the model of isolated binary evolution, BH spins mainly originate from the angular momenta of the collapsing cores before BH formation. Both obs...

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Published inThe Astrophysical journal Vol. 930; no. 1; pp. 26 - 31
Main Authors Shao, Yong, Li, Xiang-Dong
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 01.05.2022
IOP Publishing
Subjects
Astrophysics
Black holes
Compact binary stars
Deposition
Evolution
Gravitational waves
Mass transfer
Stellar evolution
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Summary:Recent gravitational-wave observations showed that binary black hole (BBH) mergers with massive components are more likely to have high effective spins. In the model of isolated binary evolution, BH spins mainly originate from the angular momenta of the collapsing cores before BH formation. Both observations and theories indicate that BHs tend to possess relatively low spins; the origin of fast-spinning BHs remains a puzzle. We investigate an alternative process that stable Case A mass transfer may significantly increase BH spins during the evolution of massive BH binaries. We present detailed binary evolution calculations and find that this process can explain the observed high spins of some massive BBH mergers under the assumption of mildly super-Eddington accretion.
Bibliography:High-Energy Phenomena and Fundamental Physics
AAS37162
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ac61da