The Impact of Initial–Final Mass Relations on Black Hole Microlensing
Abstract
Uncertainty in the initial–final mass relation (IFMR) has long been a problem in understanding the final stages of massive star evolution. One of the major challenges of constraining the IFMR is the difficulty of measuring the mass of nonluminous remnant objects (i.e., neutron stars and black holes). Gravitational-wave detectors have opened the possibility of finding large numbers of compact objects in other galaxies, but all in merging binary systems. Gravitational lensing experiments using astrometry and photometry are capable of finding compact objects, both isolated and in binaries, in the Milky Way. In this work we improve the Population Synthesis for Compact object Lensing Events (PopSyCLE) microlensing simulation code in order to explore the possibility of constraining the IFMR using the Milky Way microlensing population. We predict that the Roman Space Telescope's microlensing survey will likely be able to distinguish different IFMRs based on the differences at the long end of the Einstein crossing time distribution and the small end of the microlensing parallax distribution, assuming the small (π_E ≲ 0.02) microlensing parallaxes characteristic of black hole lenses are able to be measured accurately. We emphasize that future microlensing surveys need to be capable of characterizing events with small microlensing parallaxes in order to place the most meaningful constraints on the IFMR.
Additional Information
We thank Tuguldur Sukhbold for providing the models used in the SukhboldN20 IFMR and helping with the interpolation scheme. We thank the referee for feedback that improved the results of this paper. J.R.L. and C.Y.L. acknowledge support by the National Science Foundation under grant No. 1909641, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under contract No. NNG16PJ26C issued through the WFIRST (now Roman) Science Investigation Teams Program, and the Heising-Simons Foundation under grant No. 2022-3542. C.Y.L. also acknowledges support from NASA FINESST grant No. 80NSSC21K2043. M.W.H. is supported by the Brinson Prize Fellowship.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 118741
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20230105-911538600.4
- AST-1909641
- NSF
- NNG16PJ26C
- NASA
- 2022-3542
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- 80NSSC21K2043
- NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology Fellowship
- Brinson Foundation
- Created
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2023-02-07Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-02-07Created from EPrint's last_modified field