scholarly journals Predicting Stellar-mass Black Hole Populations in Globular Clusters

2018 ◽  
Vol 864 (1) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Newlin C. Weatherford ◽  
Sourav Chatterjee ◽  
Carl L. Rodriguez ◽  
Frederic A. Rasio
2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (4) ◽  
pp. 5340-5351 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Baumgardt ◽  
C He ◽  
S M Sweet ◽  
M Drinkwater ◽  
A Sollima ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We compare the results of a large grid of N-body simulations with the surface brightness and velocity dispersion profiles of the globular clusters ω Cen and NGC 6624. Our models include clusters with varying stellar-mass black hole retention fractions and varying masses of a central intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). We find that an $\sim 45\, 000$ M⊙ IMBH, whose presence has been suggested based on the measured velocity dispersion profile of ω Cen, predicts the existence of about 20 fast-moving, m > 0.5 M⊙, main-sequence stars with a (1D) velocity v > 60 km s−1 in the central 20 arcsec of ω Cen. However, no such star is present in the HST/ACS proper motion catalogue of Bellini et al. (2017), strongly ruling out the presence of a massive IMBH in the core of ω Cen. Instead, we find that all available data can be fitted by a model that contains 4.6 per cent of the mass of ω Cen in a centrally concentrated cluster of stellar-mass black holes. We show that this mass fraction in stellar-mass BHs is compatible with the predictions of stellar evolution models of massive stars. We also compare our grid of N-body simulations with NGC 6624, a cluster recently claimed to harbour a 20 000 M⊙ black hole based on timing observations of millisecond pulsars. However, we find that models with MIMBH > 1000 M⊙ IMBHs are incompatible with the observed velocity dispersion and surface brightness profile of NGC 6624, ruling out the presence of a massive IMBH in this cluster. Models without an IMBH provide again an excellent fit to NGC 6624.


2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (3) ◽  
pp. 4287-4294
Author(s):  
Jongsuk Hong ◽  
Abbas Askar ◽  
Mirek Giersz ◽  
Arkadiusz Hypki ◽  
Suk-Jin Yoon

ABSTRACT The dynamical formation of black hole binaries in globular clusters that merge due to gravitational waves occurs more frequently in higher stellar density. Meanwhile, the probability to form intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) also increases with the density. To explore the impact of the formation and growth of IMBHs on the population of stellar mass black hole binaries from globular clusters, we analyse the existing large survey of Monte Carlo globular cluster simulation data (mocca-survey Database I). We show that the number of binary black hole mergers agrees with the prediction based on clusters’ initial properties when the IMBH mass is not massive enough or the IMBH seed forms at a later time. However, binary black hole formation and subsequent merger events are significantly reduced compared to the prediction when the present-day IMBH mass is more massive than ${\sim}10^4\, \rm M_{\odot }$ or the present-day IMBH mass exceeds about 1 per cent of cluster’s initial total mass. By examining the maximum black hole mass in the system at the moment of black hole binary escaping, we find that ∼90 per cent of the merging binary black holes escape before the formation and growth of the IMBH. Furthermore, large fraction of stellar mass black holes are merged into the IMBH or escape as single black holes from globular clusters in cases of massive IMBHs, which can lead to the significant underpopulation of binary black holes merging with gravitational waves by a factor of 2 depending on the clusters’ initial distributions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 37-39
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Davis ◽  
Nandini Sahu ◽  
Alister W. Graham

AbstractOur multi-component photometric decomposition of the largest galaxy sample to date with dynamically-measured black hole masses nearly doubles the number of such galaxies. We have discovered substantially modified scaling relations between the black hole mass and the host galaxy properties, including the spheroid (bulge) stellar mass, the total galaxy stellar mass, and the central stellar velocity dispersion. These refinements partly arose because we were able to explore the scaling relations for various sub-populations of galaxies built by different physical processes, as traced by the presence of a disk, early-type versus late-type galaxies, or a Sérsic versus core-Sérsic spheroid light profile. The new relations appear fundamentally linked with the evolutionary paths followed by galaxies, and they have ramifications for simulations and formation theories involving both quenching and accretion.


2003 ◽  
Vol 591 (2) ◽  
pp. 843-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Fabbiano ◽  
A. R. King ◽  
A. Zezas ◽  
T. J. Ponman ◽  
A. Rots ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (S316) ◽  
pp. 240-245
Author(s):  
Nora Lützgendorf ◽  
Markus Kissler-Patig ◽  
Karl Gebhardt ◽  
Holger Baumgardt ◽  
Diederik Kruijssen ◽  
...  

AbstractThe study of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) is a young and promising field of research. If IMBH exist, they could explain the rapid growth of supermassive black holes by acting as seeds in the early stage of galaxy formation. Formed by runaway collisions of massive stars in young and dense stellar clusters, intermediate-mass black holes could still be present in the centers of globular clusters, today. We measured the inner kinematic profiles with integral-field spectroscopy for 10 Galactic globular cluster and determined masses or upper limits of central black holes. In combination with literature data we further studied the positions of our results on known black-hole scaling relations (such as M• − σ) and found a similar but flatter correlation for IMBHs. Applying cluster evolution codes, the change in the slope could be explained with the stellar mass loss occurring in clusters in a tidal field over its life time. Furthermore, we present results from several numerical simulations on the topic of IMBHs and integral field units (IFUs). N-body simulations were used to simulate IFU data cubes. For the specific case of NGC 6388 we simulated two different IFU techniques and found that velocity dispersion measurements from individual velocities are strongly biased towards lower values due to blends of neighbouring stars and background light. In addition, we use the Astrophysical Multipurpose Software Environment (AMUSE) to combine gravitational physics, stellar evolution and hydrodynamics to simulate the accretion of stellar winds onto a black hole. We find that the S-stars need to provide very strong winds in order to explain the accretion rate in the galactic center.


2018 ◽  
Vol 479 (4) ◽  
pp. 4652-4664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Arca Sedda ◽  
Abbas Askar ◽  
Mirek Giersz
Keyword(s):  

2018 ◽  
Vol 866 (1) ◽  
pp. 66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry McKernan ◽  
K. E. Saavik Ford ◽  
J. Bellovary ◽  
N. W. C. Leigh ◽  
Z. Haiman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S246) ◽  
pp. 341-345
Author(s):  
Eva Noyola ◽  
Karl Gebhardt ◽  
Marcel Bergmann

AbstractThe globular cluster ω Centauri is one of the largest and most massive members of the Galactic system. Its classification as a globular cluster has been challenged making it a candidate for being the stripped core of an accreted dwarf galaxy; this and the fact that it has one of the largest velocity dispersions for star clusters in our galaxy makes it an interesting candidate for harboring an intermediate mass black hole. We measure the surface brightness profile from integrated light on an HST/ACS image, and find a central power-law cusp of logarithmic slope -0.08. We also analyze Gemini GMOS-IFU kinematic data for a 5”x5” field centered on the nucleus of the cluster, as well as for a field 14″ away. We detect a clear rise in the velocity dispersion from 18.6 kms−1 at 14″ to 23 kms−1 in the center. Given the very large core in ω Cen (2.58'), an increase in the dispersion in the central 10″ is difficult to attribute to stellar remnants, since it requires too many dark remnants and the implied configuration would dissolve quickly given the relaxation time in the core. However, the increase could be consistent with the existence of a central black hole. Assuming a constant M/L for the stars within the core, the dispersion profile from these data and data at larger radii implies a black hole mass of 4.0+0.75−1.0×104M⊙. We have also run flattened, orbit-based models and find a similar mass. In addition, the no black hole case for the orbit model requires an extreme amount of radial anisotropy, which is difficult to preserve given the short relaxation time of the cluster.


2018 ◽  
Vol 856 (2) ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Fragione ◽  
Idan Ginsburg ◽  
Bence Kocsis

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