LIGO and Virgo have reported the detection of GW190521, from the merger of a binary black hole (BBH) with a total mass around $150$ M$_\odot$. While current stellar models limit the mass of any black hole (BH) remnant to about $40 - 50$ M$_\odot$, more massive BHs can be produced dynamically through repeated mergers in the core of a dense star cluster. The process is limited by the recoil kick (due to anisotropic emission of gravitational radiation) imparted to merger remnants, which can escape the parent cluster, thereby terminating growth. We study the role of the host cluster metallicity and escape speed in the buildup of massive BHs through repeated mergers. Almost independent of host metallicity, we find that a BBH of about $150$ M$_\odot$ could be formed dynamically in any star cluster with escape speed $\gtrsim 200$ km s$^{-1}$, as found in galactic nuclear star clusters as well as the most massive globular clusters and super star clusters. Using an inspiral-only waveform, we compute the detection probability for different primary masses ($\ge 60$ M$_\odot$) as a function of secondary mass and find that the detection probability increases with secondary mass and decreases for larger primary mass and redshift. Future additional detections of massive BBH mergers will be of fundamental importance for understanding the growth of massive BHs through dynamics and the formation of intermediate-mass BHs.
Current theoretical models predict a mass gap with a dearth of stellar black holes (BHs) between roughly $50\,M_\odot$ and $100\,M_\odot$, while, above the range accessible through massive star evolution, intermediate-mass BHs (IMBHs) still remain elusive. Repeated mergers of binary BHs, detectable via gravitational wave emission with the current LIGO/Virgo/Kagra interferometers and future detectors such as LISA or the Einstein Telescope, can form both mass-gap BHs and IMBHs. Here we explore the possibility that mass-gap BHs and IMBHs are born as a result of successive BH mergers in dense star…
Current stellar evolution models predict a dearth of black holes (BHs) with masses $\gtrsim 50$ M$_\odot$ and $\lesssim 5$ M$_\odot$, and intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; $\sim10^2- 10^5$ M$_\odot$) have not yet been detected beyond any reasonable doubt. A natural way to form massive BHs is through repeated mergers, detectable via gravitational wave emission with current LIGO/Virgo or future LISA and ET observations. Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) have masses and densities high enough to retain most of the merger products, which acquire a recoil kick at the moment of merger. We explore the …
Repeated mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in dense star clusters can produce intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). In particular, nuclear star clusters at the centers of galaxies have deep enough potential wells to retain most of the BH merger products, in spite of the significant recoil kicks due to anisotropic emission of gravitational radiation. These events can be detected in gravitational waves (GWs), which represent an unprecedented opportunity to reveal IMBHs. In this paper, we analyze the statistical results of a wide range of numerical simulations, which encompass different …
In a star cluster with a sufficiently large escape velocity, black holes (BHs) that are produced by BH mergers can be retained, dynamically form new BH binaries, and merge again. This process can repeat several times and lead to significant mass growth. In this paper, we calculate the mass of the largest BH that can be formed through repeated mergers of stellar seed BHs and determine how its value depends on the physical properties of the host cluster. We adopt an analytical model in which the energy generated by the black hole binaries in the cluster core is assumed to be regulated by the pro…
The detection of gravitational waves emitted during a neutron star - black hole merger and the associated electromagnetic counterpart will provide a wealth of information about stellar evolution nuclear matter, and General Relativity. While the theoretical framework about neutron star - black hole binaries formed in isolation is well established, the picture is loosely constrained for those forming via dynamical interactions. Here, we use N-body simulations to show that mergers forming in globular and nuclear clusters could display distinctive marks compared to isolated mergers, namely larger …
Some of the heavy elements, such as gold and europium (Eu), are almost exclusively formed by the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). However, it is still unclear which astrophysical site between core-collapse supernovae and neutron star - neutron star (NS-NS) mergers produced most of the r-process elements in the universe. Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) models can test these scenarios by quantifying the frequency and yields required to reproduce the amount of europium (Eu) observed in galaxies. Although NS-NS mergers have become popular candidates, their required frequency (or rate) …
The high rate of black hole (BH) mergers detected by LIGO/Virgo opened questions on their astrophysical origin. One possibility is the dynamical channel, in which binary formation and hardening is catalyzed by dynamical encounters in globular clusters (GCs). Previous studies have shown that the BH merger rate from the present day GC density in the Universe is lower than the observed rate. In this \textit{Letter}, we study the BH merger rate by accounting for the first time for the evolution of GCs within their host galaxies. The mass in GCs was initially $\sim 8\times$ higher, which decreased …
We review theoretical findings, astrophysical modeling, and current gravitational-wave evidence of hierarchical stellar-mass black-hole mergers. While most of the compact binary mergers detected by LIGO and Virgo are expected to consist of first-generation black holes formed from the collapse of stars, others might instead be of second (or higher) generation, containing the remnants of previous black-hole mergers. Such a subpopulation of hierarchically assembled black holes presents distinctive gravitational-wave signatures, namely higher masses, possibly within the pair-instability mass gap, …
Teen TITANS simulations -- I. Inefficient intermediate-mass black hole seeding via stellar collisions in young massive clusters
Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI)（格兰萨索科学研究所）；INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso（意大利国家核物理研究所，格兰萨索国家实验室）；Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Zentrum für Astronomie, Universität Heidelberg（海德堡大学理论天体物理学研究所，天文中心）；Universität Heidelberg, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Wissenschaftliches Rechnen（海德堡大学跨学科科学计算中心）；Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia Galileo Galilei, Università di Padova（帕多瓦大学伽利略·伽利莱物理与天文学系）；INFN-Padova（意大利国家核物理研究所帕多瓦分部）；Departament de Física Quàntica i Astrofísica (FQA), Universitat de Barcelona (UB)（巴塞罗那大学量子物理与天体物理学系）；Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona (UB)（巴塞罗那大学宇宙科学研究所）；INAF Osservatorio Astronomico d’Abruzzo（意大利国家天体物理研究所阿布鲁佐天文台）
Emission lines with a double-peak (DP) shape, detected in the centre of galaxies, have been extensively used in the past to identify peculiar kinematics such as dual active galactic nuclei, outflows or mergers. From a large DP galaxy sample, a connection to minor merger galaxies with ongoing star formation was suggested. To gain a better understanding of different mechanisms creating a DP signature, we here explore synthetic SDSS spectroscopic observations computed from disc models and simulations. We show how a DP signature is connected to the central part of the rotation curve of galaxies, w…
GW231123: Likely a product of successive mergers from $\sim 10 $ stellar-mass black holes
Key Laboratory of Dark Matter and Space Astronomy, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（暗物质和空间天文重点实验室，中国科学院紫金山天文台）；Department of Physics, University of Florida（佛罗里达大学物理系）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院）
Growing interests in neutron star (NS) mergers as the origin of r-process elements have sprouted since the discovery of evidence for the ejection of these elements from a short-duration gamma-ray burst. The hypothesis of a NS merger origin is reinforced by a theoretical update of nucleosynthesis in NS mergers successful in yielding r-process nuclides with A>130. On the other hand, whether the origin of light r-process elements are associated with nucleosynthesis in NS merger events remains unclear. We find a signature of nucleosynthesis in NS mergers from peculiar chemical abundances of stars …
Prolate rotation (i.e. rotation around the long axis) has been reported for two Local Group dwarf galaxies: Andromeda II, a dwarf spheroidal satellite of M31, and Phoenix, a transition type dwarf galaxy. The prolate rotation may be an exceptional indicator of a past major merger between dwarf galaxies. We showed that this type of rotation cannot be obtained in the tidal stirring scenario, in which the satellite is transformed from disky to spheroidal by tidal forces of the host galaxy. However, we successfully reproduced the observed Andromeda II kinematics in controlled, self-consistent simul…
Motivated by the discovery of prolate rotation of stars in Andromeda II, a dwarf spheroidal companion of M31, we study its origin via mergers of disky dwarf galaxies. We simulate merger events between two identical dwarfs changing the initial inclination of their disks with respect to the orbit and the amount of orbital angular momentum. On radial orbits the amount of prolate rotation in the merger remnants correlates strongly with the inclination of the disks and is well understood as due to the conservation of the angular momentum component of the disks along the merger axis. For non-radial …
Using a set of zoomed-in cosmological simulations of high-redshift progenitors of massive galaxies, we isolate and trace the history of gas that is accreted by central supermassive black holes. We determine the origins of the accreted gas, in terms of whether it entered the galaxy during a merger event or was smoothly accreted. Furthermore, we designate whether the smoothly accreted gas is accreted via a cold flow or is shocked upon entry into the halo. For moderate-mass (10^6 - 10^7 Msun) black holes at z ~ 4, there is a preference to accrete cold flow gas than gas of shocked or merger origin…
The dynamical formation of stellar-mass black hole-black hole binaries has long been a promising source of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mass segregation, gravitational focusing, and multibody dynamical interactions naturally increase the interaction rate between the most massive black holes in dense stellar systems, eventually leading them to merge. We find that dynamical interactions, particularly three-body binary formation, enhance the merger rate of black hole binaries with total mass M_tot roughly as ~M_tot^beta, with beta >~ 4. W…
Recent high-quality Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry shows that the main sequences (MS) stars of young star clusters form two discrete components in the color-magnitude diagram (CMD). Based on their distribution in the CMD, we show that stars of the blue MS component can be understood as slow rotators originating from stellar mergers. We derive the masses of the blue MS stars, and find that they follow a nearly flat mass function, which supports their unusual formation path. Our results imply that the cluster stars gain their mass in two different ways, by disk accretion leading to rapi…
We use a cosmological simulation of the formation of the Local Group to explore the origin of age and metallicity gradients in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We find that a number of simulated dwarfs form "outside-in", with an old, metal-poor population that surrounds a younger, more concentrated metal-rich component, reminiscent of dwarf spheroidals like Sculptor or Sextans. We focus on a few examples where stars form in two populations distinct in age in order to elucidate the origin of these gradients. The spatial distributions of the two components reflect their diverse origin; the old stellar…
Anisotropy of gravitational wave (GW) emission results in a net momentum gained by the black hole (BH) merger product, leading to a recoil velocity up to $\sim10^3\text{ km s}^{-1}$, which may kick it out of a globular cluster (GC). We estimate GW kick retention fractions of merger products assuming different models for BH spin magnitude and orientation (MS0 - random, MS1 - spin as a function of mass and metalicity, MS2 - constant value of $0.5$). We check how they depend on BH-BH merger time and properties of the cluster. We analyze the implications of GW kick retention fractions on intermedi…
We present new evidence for eight early-type galaxies (ETGs) from the CALIFA Survey that show clear rotation around their major photometric axis ("prolate rotation"). These are LSBCF560-04, NGC 0647, NGC 0810, NGC 2484, NGC 4874, NGC 5216, NGC 6173 and NGC 6338. Including NGC 5485, a known case of an ETG with stellar prolate rotation, as well as UGC 10695, a further possible candidate for prolate rotation, we report ten CALIFA galaxies in total that show evidence for such a feature in their stellar kinematics. Prolate rotators correspond to ~9% of the volume-corrected sample of CALIFA ETGs, a …
Dust Obscured Galaxies (DOGs), which are observationally characterized as faint in the optical and bright in the infrared, are the final stage of galaxy mergers and are essential objects in the evolution of galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). However, the relationship between torus-scale gas dynamics around AGNs and DOGs lifetime remain unclear. We obtained evolution of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of a galaxy merger system with AGN feedback, from post-processed pseudo-observations based on an N-body/Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation. We focused on a late sta…
Using N-body simulations we study the origin of prolate rotation recently detected in the kinematic data for And II, a dSph satellite of M31. We propose an evolutionary model for the origin of And II involving a merger between two disky dwarf galaxies whose structural parameters differ only in their disk scale lengths. The dwarfs are placed on a radial orbit towards each other with their angular momenta inclined by 45 deg to the orbital plane and by 90 deg with respect to each other. After 5 Gyr of evolution the merger remnant forms a stable triaxial galaxy with rotation only around the longes…
Double-peaked narrow emission lines in active galactic nucleus (AGN) spectra can be produced by AGN outflows, rotation, or dual AGNs, which are AGN pairs in ongoing galaxy mergers. Consequently, double-peaked narrow AGN emission lines are useful tracers of the coevolution of galaxies and their supermassive black holes, as driven by AGN feedback and AGN fueling. We investigate this concept further with follow-up optical longslit observations of a sample of 95 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxies that have double-peaked narrow AGN emission lines. Based on a kinematic analysis of the longslit…
Nuclear disks and rings are frequent galaxy substructures, for a wide range of morphological types (from S0 to Sc). We have investigated the possible minor-merger origin of inner disks and rings in spiral galaxies through collisionless N-body simulations. The models confirm that minor mergers can drive the formation of thin, kinematically-cold structures in the center of galaxies out of satellite material, without requiring the previous formation of a bar. Satellite core particles tend to be deposited in circular orbits in the central potential, due to the strong circularization experienced by…
Using the VINTERGATAN cosmological zoom simulation, we explore the contributions of the in situ and accreted material, and the effect of galaxy interactions and mergers in the assembly of a Milky Way-like galaxy. We find that the initial growth phase of galaxy evolution, dominated by repeated major mergers, provides the necessary physical conditions for the assembly of a thick, kinematically hot disk populated by high-[$α$/Fe] stars, formed both in situ and in accreted satellite galaxies. We find that the diversity of evolutionary tracks followed by the simulated galaxy and its progenitors lea…
The Milky Way's stellar disk exhibits a bimodality in the [Fe/H] vs. [$α$/Fe] plane, showing a distinct high-$α$ and low-$α$ sequence whose origin is still under debate. We examine the [Fe/H]-[$α$/Fe] abundance plane in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of Milky Way like galaxies from the NIHAO-UHD project and show that the bimodal $α$-sequence is a generic consequence of a gas-rich merger at some time in the Galaxy's evolution. The high-$α$ sequence evolves first in the early galaxies, extending to high metallicities, while it is the low-$α$ sequence that is formed after the gas-rich me…
We study galaxy shapes in the Illustris cosmological hydrodynamic simulation. We find that massive galaxies have a higher probability of being prolate. For galaxies with stellar mass larger than $10^{11}\rm M_{\odot}$, 35 out of total 839 galaxies are prolate. For 21 galaxies with stellar mass larger than $10^{12}\rm M_{\odot}$, 9 are prolate, 4 are triaxial while the others are close to being oblate. There are almost no prolate galaxies with stellar mass smaller than $3\times10^{11}\rm M_{\odot}$. We check the merger history of the prolate galaxies, and find that they are formed by major dry …
The Ly$α$ and Continuum Origins Survey. III. Investigating the Link between Galaxy Morphology, Merger Properties and LyC Escape
University of Minnesota（明尼苏达大学）；Williams College（威廉姆斯学院）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；Missouri Institute of Technology, University of Missouri-Kansas City（密苏里科技大学，密苏里大学堪萨斯城分校）；Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学）；Space Telescope Science Institute（太空望远镜科学研究所）；Stockholm University（斯德哥尔摩大学）
We analyse a set of cosmological magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of the formation of Milky Way-mass galaxies identified to have a prominent radially anisotropic stellar halo component similar to the so-called "Gaia Sausage" found in the Gaia data. We examine the effects of the progenitor of the Sausage (the Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage, GES) on the formation of major galactic components analogous to the Galactic thick disc and inner stellar halo. We find that the GES merger is likely to have been gas-rich and contribute 10-50$\%$ of gas to a merger-induced centrally concentrated starburst that resu…
We test competing models that aim at explaining the nature of stars in the Milky Way that are well away (|z|$\gtrsim$ 1kpc) from the midplane, the so-called thick disk: the stars may have gotten there through orbital migration, through satellite mergers and accretion, or through heating of pre-existing thin disk stars. Sales et al. (2009) proposed the eccentricity distribution of thick disk stars as a diagnostic to differentiate between these mechanisms. Drawing on SDSS DR7, we have assembled a sample of 34,223 G-dwarfs with 6-D phase-space information and metallicities, and have derived orbit…
The disruptive effect of galactic tides is a textbook example of gravitational dynamics. However, depending on the shape of the potential, tides can also become fully compressive. When that is the case, they might trigger or strengthen the formation of galactic substructures (star clusters, tidal dwarf galaxies), instead of destroying them. We perform N-body simulations of interacting galaxies to quantify this effect. We demonstrate that tidal compression occurs repeatedly during a galaxy merger, independently of the specific choice of parameterization. With a model tailored to the Antennae ga…
Stellar prolate rotation in dwarf galaxies is rather uncommon, with only two known galaxies in the Local Group showing such feature (Phoenix and And II). Cosmological simulations show that in massive early-type galaxies prolate rotation likely arises from major mergers. However, the origin of such kinematics in the dwarf galaxies regime has only been explored using idealized simulations. Here we made use of hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of dwarfs galaxies with stellar mass between $3\times10^5$ and $5\times10^8$ M$_{\odot}$ to explore the formation of prolate rotators. Out of $27$ dw…
The Merger-Driven Origin of the Vast Extended Stellar Disc Around the Andromeda Galaxy
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens（雅典国立卡波蒂斯坦大学）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Observatoire de Paris（巴黎天文台）；PSL Research University（PSL研究大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (MPE)（马克斯·普朗克地外物理研究所）；University Observatory Munich (USM)（慕尼黑大学天文台）
In hierarchical structure formation, metal-poor stars in and around the Milky Way (MW) originate primarily from mergers of lower-mass galaxies. A common expectation is therefore that metal-poor stars should have isotropic, dispersion-dominated orbits that do not correlate strongly with the MW disk. However, recent observations of stars in the MW show that metal-poor ([Fe/H] < -2) stars are preferentially on prograde orbits with respect to the disk. Using the FIRE-2 suite of cosmological zoom-in simulations of MW/M31-mass galaxies, we investigate the prevalence and origin of prograde metal-poor…
Rapid intermediate-mass black hole formation via runaway mergers of black holes
School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学物理学院）；CSST Science Center for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area（中国空间站科学中心粤港澳大湾区分中心）
We explore the possibility that the recently detected black hole binary (BHB) merger event GW190521 originates from the first generation of massive, metal-free, so-called Population III (Pop III), stars. Based on improved binary statistics derived from N-body simulations of Pop III star clusters, we calculate the merger rate densities of Pop III BHBs similar to GW190521, in two evolution channels: classical binary stellar evolution and dynamical hardening in high-redshift nuclear star clusters. Both channels can explain the observed rate density. But the latter is favoured by better agreement …
The relation between the size and luminosity for both bright and faint early-type galaxies has been repeatedly discussed as a crucial proxy for understanding evolutionary scenarios, as galaxies grow and lose their stellar mass in different physical processes. The class of compact early-type galaxies (cEs) are, however, distinct outliers from this relation and mainly found around massive galaxies in the centres of groups and clusters. The recent discovery of a cE in isolation provided a new opportunity to understand their formation scenario in a different environment. Here, we report the discov…
GW200208_222617 as an eccentric black-hole binary merger: properties and astrophysical implications
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge（剑桥大学应用数学与理论物理系）；Kavli Institute for Cosmology Cambridge（卡弗里宇宙学剑桥研究所）；H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory（H.H.威尔斯物理实验室）；Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics（马克斯·普朗克天体物理学研究所）；Shanghai Astronomical Observatory（上海天文台）；Dipartimento di Fisica “G. Occhialini”, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学“G.奥恰利尼”物理系）；INFN, Sezione di Milano-Bicocca（意大利国家核物理研究所米兰比可卡分部）；Niels Bohr International Academy, The Niels Bohr Institute（尼尔斯·玻尔国际学院，尼尔斯·玻尔研究所）；Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)（马克斯·普朗克引力物理学研究所（阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦研究所））；Department of Physics, University of Maryland（马里兰大学物理系）；School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Nottingham（诺丁汉大学数理科学学院）
Dynamical modeling and strong lensing data indicate that the total density profiles of early-type galaxies are close to isothermal, i.e., rho_tot ~ r^gamma with gamma approx -2. To understand the origin of this universal slope we study a set of simulated spheroids formed in isolated binary mergers as well as the formation within the cosmological framework. The total stellar plus dark matter density profiles can always be described by a power law with an index of gamma approx -2.1 with a tendency toward steeper slopes for more compact, lower-mass ellipticals. In the binary mergers the amount of…
We propose that the rotational kinematics of the globular cluster system (GCS) in M31 can result from a past major merger event that could have formed its bulge component. We numerically investigate kinematical properties of globular clusters (GCs) in remnants of galaxy mergers between two disks with GCs in both their disk and halo components. We find that the GCS formed during major merging can show strongly rotational kinematics with the maximum rotational velocities of 140 - 170 km/s for a certain range of orbital parameters of merging. We also find that a rotating stellar bar, which can be…
In recent years surveys have identified several dozen B stars in the Milky Way halo moving faster than the local escape speed. The origin of most of these hypervelocity stars (HVSs) is still poorly constrained. Here we show that the velocity distribution, and in particular the deficiency in >700 km/s HVSs is inconsistent with binary disruptions by the massive black hole (MBH) in the Galactic Centre. This conclusion holds in the full and empty loss cone regime, and for secular instabilities in eccentric disks. Accounting for multiple close encounters between binaries and the MBH, does not quali…
