Gravitational waves from the remnants of the first stars

Abstract

Gravitational waves (GWs) provide a revolutionary tool to investigate yet unobserved astrophysical objects. Especially the first stars, which are believed to be more massive than present-day stars, might be indirectly observable via the merger of their compact remnants. We develop a self-consistent, cosmologically representative, semi-analytical model to simulate the formation of the first stars. By extrapolating binary stellar-evolution models at 10 per cent solar metallicity to metal-free stars, we track the individual systems until the coalescence of the compact remnants. We estimate the contribution of primordial stars to the merger rate density and to the detection rate of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO). Owing to their higher masses, the remnants of primordial stars produce strong GW signals, even if their contribution in number is relatively small. We find a probability of ≧1 per cent that the current detection GW150914 is of primordial origin. We estimate that aLIGO will detect roughly 1 primordial BH-BH merger per year for the final design sensitivity, although this rate depends sensitively on the primordial initialmass function (IMF). Turning this around, the detection of black hole mergers with a total binary mass of ~300M⊙ would enable us to constrain the primordial IMF.