Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) | 2017 Jun 27
[img3=" A team of three Dutch astronomers explains how two black holes can orbit each other for a while. It starts with two big stars orbiting around each other (left). If the largest star collapses into a black hole, the smaller star may remain more or less intact for a long time (right). Credit: ESO/Kornmesser/de Mink (left) & ESA/Carreau (right)"]http://www.astronomie.nl/media/medialib ... esMink.png[/img3][hr][/hr]A team of three Dutch astronomers from the University of Amsterdam and Leiden University found a new way to form two black holes that orbit each other for quite a while and then merge. ...
At the beginning of June 2017, it was breaking news for the third time: two merging black holes caused a burst of gravitational waves. Astronomers, though, do not agree on how such double black holes form. One hypothesis is that two black holes form far away from each other, drift slowly towards each other and then start orbiting. The second hypothesis is that two massive stars orbit each other, explode and collapse into two black holes.
Dutch researchers Ed van den Heuvel (University of Amsterdam), Simon Portegies Zwart (Leiden University) and Selma de Mink (University of Amsterdam) now show that this second hypothesis, of two orbiting stars, is more likely than previously expected. ...
Forming Short-Period Wolf-Rayet X-ray Binaries and
Double Black Holes through Stable Mass Transfer - Edward P. J. van den Heuvel et al
- Monthly Notices of the RAS (online 26 Jun 2017) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx1430
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1701.02355 > 09 Jan 2017 (v1), 15 Jun 2017 (v2)