2006/03/13 by Clovis Hopman, Tal Alexander · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Black hole (networking) #Compact star #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gravitational wave #Neutron star #Observable #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Spiral galaxy #Stars #White dwarf #astro-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/506273
published as Astrophys.J.645:L133-L136,2006 · Submitted to ApJL
arxiv created 2006/03/13 · openalex publication_date 2006/06/29 · arxiv updated 2014/10/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Gravitational waves (GWs) from the inspiral of compact remnants (CRs) into massive black holes (MBHs) will be observable to cosmological distances. While a CR spirals in, two-body scattering by field stars may cause it to fall into the central MBH before reaching a short-period orbit that would give an observable signal. As a result, only CRs very near (~0.01 pc) the MBH can spiral in successfully. In a multimass stellar population, the heaviest objects sink to the center, where they are more likely to slowly spiral into the MBH without being swallowed prematurely. We study how mass segregation modifies the stellar distribution and the rate of GW events. We find that the inspiral rate per galaxy is 30 Gyr -1 for white dwarfs, 6 Gyr -1 for neutron stars, and 250 Gyr -1 for 10 M ☉ stellar black holes (SBHs). The high rate for SBHs is due to their extremely steep density profile, n BH ( r ) ∝ r -2 . The GW detection rate will be dominated by SBHs.