Compact Object Mergers Driven by Gas Fallback

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 120; no. 26; p. 261101
• Main Authors: Tagawa, Hiromichi, Saitoh, Takayuki R, Kocsis, Bence
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physical Society 29-06-2018
• Subjects: Binary stars; Core loss; Fluid dynamics; Fluid flow; Gas expansion; Gravitation; Gravitational waves; Hardening; Neutrinos; Smooth particle hydrodynamics; Stability; Stellar evolution; Stellar system evolution
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.120.261101

Recently, several gravitational wave detections have shown evidence for compact object mergers. However, the astrophysical origin of merging binaries is not well understood. Stellar binaries are typically at much larger separations than what is needed for the binaries to merge due to gravitational wave emission, which leads to the so-called final AU problem. In this Letter we propose a new channel for mergers of compact object binaries which solves the final AU problem. We examine the binary evolution following gas expansion due to a weak failed supernova explosion, neutrino mass loss, core disturbance, or envelope instability. In such situations the binary is possibly hardened by ambient gas. We investigate the evolution of the binary system after a shock has propagated by performing smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We find that significant binary hardening occurs when the gas mass bound to the binary exceeds that of the compact objects. This mechanism represents a new possibility for the pathway to mergers for gravitational wave events.