Context. Various binary black hole formation channels have been proposed since the first gravitational event GW150914 was discovered by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (AdLIGO). For all evolutionary channels based on the evolution of isolated binaries, the immediate progenitor of the binary black hole is a close binary system composed of a black hole and a helium star. Aims. We study the spin angular momentum evolution of the helium star in order to constrain the spin of the second-born black hole. Methods. We perform detailed stellar structure and binary evolution calculations that take into account, mass-loss, internal differential rotation, and tidal interactions between the helium star and the black hole companion, where we also calculate the strength of the tidal interactions from first principles based on the structure of the helium stars. We systematically explore the parameter space of initial binary properties, including initial black hole and helium star masses, initial rotation of the helium star as well as metallicity.Results. We argue that the spin of the first-born black hole at its birth is negligible ( 0.1), hence the second-born black hole's spin dominates the measured effective spin, χ eff , from gravitational wave events of double black hole mergers. We find that tides can be important only when orbital periods are shorter than 2 days. Upon core collapse, the helium star produces a black hole (the secondborn black hole in the system) with a spin that can span the entire range from zero to maximally spinning. We show that the bimodal distribution of the spin of the second-born black hole obtained in recent papers is mainly due to oversimplifying assumptions. We find an anti-correlation between the merging timescale of the two black holes, T merger , and the effective spin χ eff . Finally, we provide new prescriptions for the tidal coefficient E 2 for both H-rich and the helium-rich stars. Conclusions. To understand the spin of the second-born black hole, careful treatments of both tides and stellar winds are needed. We predict that, with future improvements to AdLIGO's sensitivity, the sample of merging binary black hole systems will show an overdensity of sources with positive but small χ eff originating from lower mass black hole mergers born at low redshift.

Context. After years of scientific progress, the origin of stellar binary black holes is still a great mystery. Several formation channels for merging black holes have been proposed in the literature. As more merger detections are expected with future gravitational-wave observations, population synthesis studies can help to distinguish between them. Aims. We study the formation of coalescing binary black holes via the evolution of isolated field binaries that go through the common envelope phase in order to obtain the combined distributions of observables such as black-hole spins, masses and cosmological redshifts of mergers. Methods. To achieve this aim, we used a hybrid technique that combines the parametric binary population synthesis code COMPAS with detailed binary evolution simulations performed with the MESA code. We then convolved our binary evolution calculations with the redshift- and metallicity-dependent star-formation rate and the selection effects of gravitational-wave detectors to obtain predictions of observable properties. Results. By assuming efficient angular momentum transport, we are able to present a model that is capable of simultaneously predicting the following three main gravitational-wave observables: the effective inspiral spin parameter χeff, the chirp mass Mchirp and the cosmological redshift of merger zmerger. We find an excellent agreement between our model and the ten events from the first two advanced detector observing runs. We make predictions for the third observing run O3 and for Advanced LIGO design sensitivity. We expect approximately 80% of events with χeff <  0.1, while the remaining 20% of events with χeff ≥ 0.1 are split into ∼10% with Mchirp <  15 M⊙ and ∼10% with Mchirp ≥ 15 M⊙. Moreover, we find that Mchirp and χeff distributions are very weakly dependent on the detector sensitivity. Conclusions. The favorable comparison of the existing LIGO/Virgo observations with our model predictions gives support to the idea that the majority, if not all of the observed mergers, originate from the evolution of isolated binaries. The first-born black hole has negligible spin because it lost its envelope after it expanded to become a giant star, while the spin of the second-born black hole is determined by the tidal spin up of its naked helium star progenitor by the first-born black hole companion after the binary finished the common-envelope phase.

We study the impact of mass-transfer physics on the observable properties of binary black hole populations that formed through isolated binary evolution. We used the POSYDON framework to combine detailed MESA binary simulations with the COSMIC population synthesis tool to obtain an accurate estimate of merging binary black hole observables with a specific focus on the spins of the black holes. We investigate the impact of mass-accretion efficiency onto compact objects and common-envelope efficiency on the observed distributions of the effective inspiral spin parameter χeff, chirp mass Mchirp, and binary mass ratio q. We find that low common envelope efficiency translates to tighter orbits following the common envelope and therefore more tidally spun up second-born black holes. However, these systems have short merger timescales and are only marginally detectable by current gravitational-wave detectors as they form and merge at high redshifts (z ∼ 2), outside current detector horizons. Assuming Eddington-limited accretion efficiency and that the first-born black hole is formed with a negligible spin, we find that all non-zero χeff systems in the detectable population can come only from the common envelope channel as the stable mass-transfer channel cannot shrink the orbits enough for efficient tidal spin-up to take place. We find that the local rate density (z ≃ 0.01) for the common envelope channel is in the range of ∼17–113 Gpc−3 yr−1, considering a range of αCE ∈ [0.2, 5.0], while for the stable mass transfer channel the rate density is ∼25 Gpc−3 yr−1. The latter drops by two orders of magnitude if the mass accretion onto the black hole is not Eddington limited because conservative mass transfer does not shrink the orbit as efficiently as non-conservative mass transfer does. Finally, using GWTC-2 events, we constrained the lower bound of branching fraction from other formation channels in the detected population to be ∼0.2. Assuming all remaining events to be formed through either stable mass transfer or common envelope channels, we find moderate to strong evidence in favour of models with inefficient common envelopes.

Black hole (BH) spins in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) cover a range of values that can be explained by accretion after BH birth. In contrast, the three BH spin measurements in high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) show only values near the maximum and likely have a different origin connected to the BH stellar progenitor. We explore here two possible scenarios to explain the high spins of BHs in HMXBs: formation in binaries that undergo mass transfer (MT) during the main sequence (MS; Case-A MT), and very close binaries undergoing chemically homogeneous evolution (CHE). We find that both scenarios are able to produce high-spin BHs if internal angular momentum (AM) transport in the progenitor star after its MS evolution is not too strong (i.e., weak coupling between the stellar core and its envelope). If instead efficient AM transport is assumed, we find that the resulting BH spins are always too low with respect to observations. The Case-A MT model provides a good fit for the BH spins, the masses of the two components, and the final orbital periods for two of the three BHs in HMXBs with measured spins. For one of them, the mass predicted for the BH companion is significantly lower than observed, but this depends strongly on the assumed efficiency of mass transfer. The CHE models predict orbital periods that are too large for all three cases considered here. We expect the Case-A MT to be much more frequent at the metallicities involved, so we conclude that the Case-A MT scenario is preferred. Finally, we predict that the stellar companions of HMXBs formed through the Case-A MT have enhanced nitrogen surface abundances, which can be tested by future observations.

The durations (T 90 ) of 315 GRBs detected with Fermi/GBM (8-1000 keV) by 2011 September are calculated using the Bayesian Block method. We compare the T 90 distributions between this sample and those derived from previous/current GRB missions. We show that the T 90 distribution of this GRB sample is bimodal, with a statistical significance level being comparable to those derived from the BeppoSAX/GRBM sample and the Swift/BAT sample, but lower than that derived from the CGRO/BATSE sample. The short-to-long GRB number ratio is also much lower than that derived from the BATSE sample, i.e., 1:6.5 vs 1:3. We measure T 90 in several bands, i.e., 8-15, 15-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-350, and 350-1000 keV, to investigate the energy-dependence effect of the bimodal T 90 distribution. It is found that the bimodal feature is well observed in the 50-100 and 100-350 keV bands, but is only marginally acceptable in the 25-50 keV and 350-1000 keV bands. The hypothesis of the bimodality is confidently rejected in the 8-15 and 15-25 keV bands. The T 90 distributions in these bands are roughly consistent with those observed by missions with similar energy bands. The parameter T 90 as a function of energy followsT 90 ∝ E −0.20±0.02 for long GRBs.Considering the erratic X-ray and optical flares, the duration of a burst would be even much longer for most GRBs. Our results, together with the observed extended emission of some short GRBs, indicate that the central engine activity time scale would be much longer than T 90 for both long and short GRBs and the observed bimodal T 90 distribution may be due to an instrumental selection effect.Available in the electronic version only.

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts are thought to be associated with the core-collapse of massive, rapidly spinning stars and the formation of black holes. However, efficient angular momentum transport in stellar interiors, currently supported by asteroseismic and gravitational-wave constraints, leads to predominantly slowly-spinning stellar cores. Here, we report on binary stellar evolution and population synthesis calculations, showing that tidal interactions in close binaries not only can explain the observed subpopulation of spinning, merging binary black holes but also lead to long gamma-ray bursts at the time of black-hole formation. Given our model calibration against the distribution of isotropic-equivalent energies of luminous long gamma-ray bursts, we find that ≈10% of the GWTC-2 reported binary black holes had a luminous long gamma-ray burst associated with their formation, with GW190517 and GW190719 having a probability of ≈85% and ≈60%, respectively, being among them. Moreover, given an assumption about their average beaming fraction, our model predicts the rate density of long gamma-ray bursts, as a function of redshift, originating from this channel. For a constant beaming fraction fB ∼ 0.05 our model predicts a rate density comparable to the observed one, throughout the redshift range, while, at redshift z ∈ [0, 2.5], a tentative comparison with the metallicity distribution of observed LGRB host galaxies implies that between 20% to 85% of the observed long gamma-ray bursts may originate from progenitors of merging binary black holes. The proposed link between a potentially significant fraction of observed, luminous long gamma-ray bursts and the progenitors of spinning binary black-hole mergers allows us to probe the latter well outside the horizon of current-generation gravitational wave observatories, and out to cosmological distances.

Most massive stars are members of a binary or a higher-order stellar system, where the presence of a binary companion can decisively alter their evolution via binary interactions. Interacting binaries are also important astrophysical laboratories for the study of compact objects. Binary population synthesis studies have been used extensively over the last two decades to interpret observations of compact-object binaries and to decipher the physical processes that lead to their formation. Here, we present POSYDON, a novel, publicly available, binary population synthesis code that incorporates full stellar structure and binary-evolution modeling, using the MESA code, throughout the whole evolution of the binaries. The use of POSYDON enables the self-consistent treatment of physical processes in stellar and binary evolution, including: realistic mass-transfer calculations and assessment of stability, internal angular-momentum transport and tides, stellar core sizes, mass-transfer rates, and orbital periods. This paper describes the detailed methodology and implementation of POSYDON, including the assumed physics of stellar and binary evolution, the extensive grids of detailed single- and binary-star models, the postprocessing, classification, and interpolation methods we developed for use with the grids, and the treatment of evolutionary phases that are not based on precalculated grids. The first version of POSYDON targets binaries with massive primary stars (potential progenitors of neutron stars or black holes) at solar metallicity.

Hardness ratio evolutionary curves of gamma-ray bursts expected by the curvature effect AbstractWe have investigated the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) pulses with a fast rise and an exponential decay phase, assumed to arise from relativistically expending fireballs, and found that the curvature effect influences the evolutionary curve of the corresponding hardness ratio (hereafter HRC). We find, due to the curvature effect, the evolutionary curve of the pure hardness ratio (when the background count is not included) would peak at the very beginning of the curve, and then would undergo a drop-to-rise-to-decay phase. In the case of the raw hardness ratio (when the background count is included), the curvature effect would give rise to several types of evolutionary curve, depending on the hardness of a burst. For a soft burst, an upside-down pulse of its raw HRC would be observed; for a hard burst, its raw HRC shows a pulse-like profile with a sinkage in its decaying phase; for a very hard burst, the raw HRC possesses a pulse-like profile without a sinkage in its decaying phase. For a pulse-like raw HRC as shown in the case of the hard and very hard bursts, its peak would appear in advance of that of the corresponding light curve, which was observed previously in some GRBs. For illustration, we have studied here the HRC of GRB 920216, GRB 920830 and GRB 990816 in detail. The features of the raw HRC expected in the hard burst are observed in these bursts. A fit to the three bursts shows that the curvature effect alone could indeed account for the predicted characteristics of HRCs. In addition, we find that the observed hardness ratio tends to be harder at the beginning of the pulses than what the curvature effect could predict and be softer at the late time of the pulses. We believe this is an evidence showing the existence of intrinsic hard-to-soft radiation which might be due to the acceleration-to-deceleration mode of shocks.PACS numbers: 98.70. Rz,