The growth of stellar mass black hole binaries trapped in an accretion disk of active galactic nuclei

TL;DR

This paper explores how stellar-mass black hole binaries can grow significantly in mass within active galactic nucleus disks, potentially explaining massive black hole mergers observed by LIGO and predicting new gravitational wave sources.

Contribution

It introduces a model where black hole binaries increase in mass through accretion in AGN disks, offering an alternative to metal-poor star progenitors for massive black holes.

Findings

Black hole binaries can grow to >20 M_ in AGN disks with high accretion rates.

Growth occurs in low-mass AGN disks with 0^6 M_\u001d and Eddington ratio >0.01.

Predicted new gravitational wave sources involving merging Kerr black holes in AGNs.

Abstract

Among the four black hole binary merger events detected by LIGO, six progenitor black holes have masses greater than 20\,$M_\odot$. The existence of such massive BHs calls for extreme metal-poor stars as the progenitors. An alternative possibility that a pair of stellar mass black holes each with mass $\sim7\,M_\odot$ increases to $>20\,M_\odot$ via accretion from a disk surrounding a super massive black hole in an active galactic nucleus is considered. The growth of mass of the binary and the transfer of orbital angular momentum to the disk accelerates the merger. Based on the recent numerical work of Tang et al. (2017), it is found that, in the disk of a low mass AGN with mass $\sim10^6\,M_\odot$ and Eddington ratio $>0.01$, the mass of an individual BH in the binary can grow to $>20\,M_\odot$ before coalescence provided that accretion takes place at a rate more than 10 times the Eddington value. The mechanism predicts a new class of gravitational wave sources involving the merger of two extreme Kerr black holes associated with active galactic nuclei and a possible electromagnetic wave counterpart.