The Impact of Initial-Final Mass Relations on Black Hole Microlensing

TL;DR

This paper explores how microlensing surveys, especially with the Roman Space Telescope, can constrain the initial-final mass relation of stars by analyzing black hole microlensing events in the Milky Way.

Contribution

The authors enhance the PopSyCLE simulation code to assess the potential of microlensing surveys in constraining the IFMR, highlighting the importance of small parallax measurements.

Findings

Roman Space Telescope can distinguish different IFMRs via microlensing timescales.

Small microlensing parallaxes are crucial for constraining the IFMR.

Future surveys should focus on accurately measuring small parallaxes.

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 non-luminous 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 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 ($\pi_E \lesssim 0.02$) 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.