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Published June 21, 2018 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Low-mass X-ray binaries from black hole retaining globular clusters

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that globular clusters (GCs) may retain a substantial population of stellar-mass black holes (BHs), in contrast to the long-held belief of a few to zero BHs. We model the population of BH low-mass X-ray binaries (BH-LMXBs), an ideal observable proxy for elusive single BHs, produced from a representative group of Milky Way GCs with variable BH populations. We simulate the formation of BH binaries in GCs through exchange interactions between binary and single stars in the company of tens to hundreds of BHs. Additionally, we consider the impact of the BH population on the rate of compact binaries undergoing gravitational wave driven mergers. The characteristics of the BH-LMXB population and binary properties are sensitive to the GCs structural parameters as well as its unobservable BH population. We find that GCs retaining ∼1000 BHs produce a galactic population of ∼150 ejected BH-LMXBs, whereas GCs retaining only ∼20 BHs produce zero ejected BH-LMXBs. Moreover, we explore the possibility that some of the presently known BH-LMXBs might have originated in GCs and identify five candidate systems.

Additional Information

© 2018 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/about_us/legal/notices) Accepted 2018 March 8. Received 2018 January 30; in original form 2017 August 19. The authors thank Sterl Phinney, Steinn Sigurdsson, and Saul Teukolsky for valuable discussions. Additionally, we thank the anonymous referee for helpful comments on this manuscript. This work is partially supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and by NSF under award no. CAREER PHY-1151197. The simulations were carried out on NSF/NCSA Blue Waters under PRAC award no. ACI-1440083 and on the Caltech cluster Zwicky, supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and NSF award no. PHY-0960291.

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August 19, 2023
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