• Open Access

Compact Object Mergers Driven by Gas Fallback

Hiromichi Tagawa, Takayuki R. Saitoh, and Bence Kocsis
Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 261101 – Published 25 June 2018

Abstract

Recently, several gravitational wave detections have shown evidence for compact object mergers. However, the astrophysical origin of merging binaries is not well understood. Stellar binaries are typically at much larger separations than what is needed for the binaries to merge due to gravitational wave emission, which leads to the so-called final AU problem. In this Letter we propose a new channel for mergers of compact object binaries which solves the final AU problem. We examine the binary evolution following gas expansion due to a weak failed supernova explosion, neutrino mass loss, core disturbance, or envelope instability. In such situations the binary is possibly hardened by ambient gas. We investigate the evolution of the binary system after a shock has propagated by performing smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We find that significant binary hardening occurs when the gas mass bound to the binary exceeds that of the compact objects. This mechanism represents a new possibility for the pathway to mergers for gravitational wave events.

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  • Received 2 February 2018
  • Revised 10 April 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.261101

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

© 2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Hiromichi Tagawa1,*, Takayuki R. Saitoh2, and Bence Kocsis1

  • 1Institute of Physics, Eötvös University, Pázmány P.s., Budapest 1117, Hungary
  • 2Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1, Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan

  • *htagawa@caesar.elte.hu

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Issue

Vol. 120, Iss. 26 — 29 June 2018

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