No Arabic abstract
Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) with a mass between $10^{2}$ and $10^{5}$ times that of the sun, which bridges the {mass gap between the} stellar-mass black holes and the supermassive black holes, are crucial in understanding the evolution of the black holes. Although they are widely believed to exist, decisive evidence has long been absent. Motivated by the successful detection of massive stellar-mass black holes by advanced LIGO, through the gravitational wave radiation during the binary merger, in this work we investigate the prospect of detecting/identifying the lightest IMBHs (LIMBHs; the black holes $gtrsim 100M_odot$) with the second generation gravitational wave detectors. In general, the chance of hearing the birth of the LIMBHs is significantly higher than that to identify pre-merger IMBHs. The other formation channel of LIMBHs, where stars with huge mass/low-metallicity directly collapse, is likely silent, so the merger-driven birth of the LIMBHs may be the only observable scenario in the near future. Moreover, the prospect of establishing the presence of (lightest) intermediate mass black holes in the O3 run and beyond of advanced LIGO is found quite promising, implying that such an instrument could make another breakthrough on astronomy in the near future. The joining of other detectors like advanced Virgo would only increase the detection rate.
We study the formation of intermediate-mass ratio inspirals (IMRIs) triggered by the interactions between two stellar black holes (BHs) and an intermediate-mass BH (IMBH) inhabiting the centre of a dense star cluster. We exploit $N$-body models varying the IMBH mass, the stellar BH mass spectrum, and the star cluster properties. These simulations are coupled with a semi-analytic procedure to characterise the evolution of the remnant IMBH. The IMRIs formation probability attains values $sim 5-50%$, with larger values corresponding to larger IMBH masses. IMRIs map out the stellar BH mass spectrum, thus they might be used to unravel BH populations in star clusters harboring an IMBH. After the IMRI phase, an IMBH initially nearly maximal(almost non-rotating) tends to decrease(increase) its spin. If IMBHs grow mostly via repeated IMRIs, we show that only IMBH seeds sufficiently massive ($M_{rm seed} > 300$ M$_odot$) can grow up to $M_{rm imbh} >10^3$ M$_odot$ in dense globular clusters. Assuming that these seeds form at a redshift $zsim 2-6$, we find that around $1-5%$ of them would reach masses $sim 500-1500$ M$_odot$ at redshift $z=0$ and would exhibit low-spins, $S_{rm imbh} < 0.2$. Measuring the mass and spin of IMBHs involved in IMRIs could help unravelling their formation mechanisms. We show that LISA can detect IMBHs in Milky Way globular clusters with a signal-to-noise ratio SNR$=10-100$, or in the Large Magellanic Cloud with an SNR$=8-40$. We provide the IMRIs merger rate for LIGO ($Gamma_{rm LIG} = 0.003-1.6$ yr$^{-1}$), LISA ($Gamma_{rm LIS} = 0.02-60$ yr$^{-1}$), ET ($Gamma_{rm ET} = 1-600$ yr$^{-1}$), and DECIGO ($Gamma_{rm DEC} = 6-3000$ yr$^{-1}$). Our simulations show that IMRIs mass and spin encode crucial insights on the mechanisms that regulate IMBH formation and that the synergy among different detectors would enable us to fully unveil them. (Abridged)
The next generation of gravitational-wave experiments, such as Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer and LISA, will test the primordial black hole scenario. We provide a forecast for the minimum testable value of the abundance of primordial black holes as a function of their masses for both the unclustered and clustered spatial distributions at formation. In particular, we show that these instruments may test abundances, relative to the dark matter, as low as $10^{-10}$.
Gravitational waves from coalescences of neutron stars or stellar-mass black holes into intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) of $gtrsim 100$ solar masses represent one of the exciting possible sources for advanced gravitational-wave detectors. These sources can provide definitive evidence for the existence of IMBHs, probe globular-cluster dynamics, and potentially serve as tests of general relativity. We analyse the accuracy with which we can measure the masses and spins of the IMBH and its companion in intermediate-mass ratio coalescences. We find that we can identify an IMBH with a mass above $100 ~ M_odot$ with $95%$ confidence provided the massive body exceeds $130 ~ M_odot$. For source masses above $sim200 ~ M_odot$, the best measured parameter is the frequency of the quasi-normal ringdown. Consequently, the total mass is measured better than the chirp mass for massive binaries, but the total mass is still partly degenerate with spin, which cannot be accurately measured. Low-frequency detector sensitivity is particularly important for massive sources, since sensitivity to the inspiral phase is critical for measuring the mass of the stellar-mass companion. We show that we can accurately infer source parameters for cosmologically redshifted signals by applying appropriate corrections. We investigate the impact of uncertainty in the model gravitational waveforms and conclude that our main results are likely robust to systematics.
Black holes are unique among astrophysical sources: they are the simplest macroscopic objects in the Universe, and they are extraordinary in terms of their ability to convert energy into electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. Our capacity to probe their nature is limited by the sensitivity of our detectors. The LIGO/Virgo interferometers are the gravitational-wave equivalent of Galileos telescope. The first few detections represent the beginning of a long journey of exploration. At the current pace of technological progress, it is reasonable to expect that the gravitational-wave detectors available in the 2035-2050s will be formidable tools to explore these fascinating objects in the cosmos, and space-based detectors with peak sensitivities in the mHz band represent one class of such tools. These detectors have a staggering discovery potential, and they will address fundamental open questions in physics and astronomy. Are astrophysical black holes adequately described by general relativity? Do we have empirical evidence for event horizons? Can black holes provide a glimpse into quantum gravity, or reveal a classical breakdown of Einsteins gravity? How and when did black holes form, and how do they grow? Are there new long-range interactions or fields in our universe, potentially related to dark matter and dark energy or a more fundamental description of gravitation? Precision tests of black hole spacetimes with mHz-band gravitational-wave detectors will probe general relativity and fundamental physics in previously inaccessible regimes, and allow us to address some of these fundamental issues in our current understanding of nature.
We calculate the gravitational wave signal from the growth of 10 million solar mass supermassive black holes (SMBH) from the remnants of Population III stars. The assembly of these lower mass black holes is particularly important because observing SMBHs in this mass range is one of the primary science goals for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a planned NASA/ESA mission to detect gravitational waves. We use high resolution cosmological N-body simulations to track the merger history of the host dark matter halos, and model the growth of the SMBHs with a semi-analytic approach that combines dynamical friction, gas accretion, and feedback. We find that the most common source in the LISA band from our volume consists of mergers between intermediate mass black holes and SMBHs at redshifts less than 2. This type of high mass ratio merger has not been widely considered in the gravitational wave community; detection and characterization of this signal will likely require a different technique than is used for SMBH mergers or extreme mass ratio inspirals. We find that the event rate of this new LISA source depends on prescriptions for gas accretion onto the black hole as well as an accurate model of the dynamics on a galaxy scale; our best estimate yields about 40 sources with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 30 occur within a volume like the Local Group during SMBH assembly -- extrapolated over the volume of the universe yields roughly 500 observed events over 10 years, although the accuracy of this rate is affected by cosmic variance.