THE PROGENITOR OF GW150914

  • Woosley S
96Citations
Citations of this article
45Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

The spectacular detection of gravitational waves (GWs) from GW150914 and its reported association with a gamma-ray burst (GRB) offer new insights into the evolution of massive stars. Here, it is shown that no single star of any mass and credible metallicity is likely to produce the observed GW signal. Stars with helium cores in the mass range 35–133 M ⊙ encounter the pair instability and either explode or pulse until the core mass is less than 45 M ⊙ , smaller than the combined mass of the observed black holes. The rotation of more massive helium cores is either braked by interaction with a slowly rotating hydrogen envelope, if one is present, or by mass loss, if one is not. The very short interval between the GW signal and the observed onset of the putative GRB in GW150914 is also too short to have come from a single star. A more probable model for making the gravitational radiation is the delayed merger of two black holes made by 70 and 90 M ⊙ stars in a binary system. The more massive component was a pulsational-pair instability supernova before making the first black hole.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Woosley, S. E. (2016). THE PROGENITOR OF GW150914. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 824(1), L10. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8205/824/1/l10

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free