GW150914: spin-based constraints on the merger time of the progenitor system

2016/05/31 by Doron Kushnir, Matias Zaldarriaga, Matías Zaldarriaga +2 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Binary number #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Merge (version control) #Physics #Progenitor #Progenitor cell #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.HE

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw1684

7 pages, 4 figures. Minor changes after referee report

openalex publication_date 2016/07/13 · arxiv created 2016/07/28 · arxiv updated 2016/08/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

We explore the implications of the observed low spin of GW150914 within the context of stellar astrophysics and progenitor models. We conclude that many of the recently proposed scenarios are in marked tension with this observation. We derive a simple model for the observed spin in the case that the progenitor system was a field binary composed of a black hole (BH) and a Wolf–Rayet star and explore the implications of the observed spin for this model. The spin observation allows us to place a lower limit for the delay time between the formation of the BH+BH binary and the actual merger, tmerge. We use typical values for these systems to derive tmerge ≳ 108 yr, which proves to be an important diagnostic for different progenitor models. We anticipate the next series of events, and the associated spin parameters, will ultimately yield critical constraints on formation scenarios and on stellar parameters describing the late-stage evolution of massive stars.

Citations

• Thermonuclear explosion of rotating massive stars could explain core-collapse supernovae
• MODULES FOR EXPERIMENTS IN STELLAR ASTROPHYSICS (MESA)
• The evolution of runaway stellar collision products
• Mass-loss predictions for O and B stars as a function of metallicity
• The progenitors of core-collapse supernovae suggest thermonuclear origin for the explosions
• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• The first gravitational-wave source from the isolated evolution of two stars in the 40–100 solar mass range

Cited by

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• Comparing the birth rate of stellar black holes in binary black hole mergers and long gamma-ray bursts
• Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap
• You Can’t Always Get What You Want: The Impact of Prior Assumptions on Interpreting GW190412
• Progenitors of binary black hole mergers detected by LIGO