MOCCA-Survey Database: Extra Galactic Globular Clusters. III. The population of black holes in Milky Way and Andromeda-like galaxies

TL;DR

This study models the black hole populations in globular clusters of Milky Way- and Andromeda-like galaxies, revealing their properties, merger rates, and distribution, with implications for understanding black hole dynamics and gravitational wave sources.

Contribution

It introduces a combined modeling approach to characterize black hole populations in globular clusters of MW and M31-like galaxies, including merger rates and nuclear transport estimates.

Findings

Approximately 80% of merging BBHs form dynamically.

Merger rate for BBHs in the local universe is 1.0-23 yr^{-1} Gpc^{-3}.

Around 1,000-3,000 BHs are transported into galactic nuclei over 12 Gyr.

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the black hole (BH) population of globular clusters (GCs) in Milky Way- (MW) and Andromeda- (M31) like galaxies. We combine the population synthesis code MASinGa and the MOCCA-Survey Database I to infer the properties of GCs harbouring a BH subsystem (BHS), an IMBH, or neither of those. We find that the typical number of GCs with a BHS, an IMBH, or none become comparable in the galactic outskirts, whilst the inner galactic regions are dominated by GCs without a significant dark component. Our models suggest that GCs harbouring a BHS are slightly heavier and with larger half-mass radii compared to the overall population. We retrieve the properties of binary BHs (BBHs) that have either merged in the last 3 Gyr or survived in their parent cluster until present-day. We find that around 80\% of the merging BBHs form due to dynamical interactions while the remaining originate from evolution of primordial binaries. We infer a merger rate for BBHs in the local Universe of $1.0-23\,\,\rm{yr^{-1}\,Gpc^{-3}}$, depending on the adopted assumptions. We find around 100-240 BBHs survive until present-day and are mostly concentrated in the inner few kpc of the galaxy. We estimate also the number of BHs transported into the galactic nucleus by infalling star clusters, finding around 1,000-3,000 BHs and 100-200 BBHs are transported over a time span of 12 Gyr. This enables us to constrains the total amount of BHs and BBHs binaries lurking in nuclear star cluster, i.e. $N_{BHs}=(1.4-2.2)\times10^4$ and $N_{BBHs}=700-1,100$.