Predicting Black Hole Populations

in Globular Clusters
Newlin Weatherford, Sourav Chatterjee, Carl Rodriguez, & Fred Rasio
Northwestern University
Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA)

Motivation Correlating Mass Segregation to Black Hole Population Size

1.00

Globular clusters (GCs) are the largest and oldest subgroups of stars within a Using a collection of 37 fully-evolved globular Pop1 (Giants)
Pop2 (Dim MS)
Age, t
Ncluster
⇠
⇠
12 Gyr
4.2 ⇥ 105

galaxy. The 150 GCs in the Milky Way average around 12 billion years old and each cluster models, we selected two observable Age, t ⇠ 12 Gyr
NPop1
NPop2
⇠
⇠
7.7 ⇥ 102
1.1 ⇥ 105
⇠ 4.2 ⇥ 105
populations of stars – high-mass and low-mass – and
Ncluster
NBH = 176
contain of order ~105 to 106 stars. Modeling these dense clusters is an ongoing 0.75
NPop1
NPop2
⇠
⇠
9.0 ⇥ 102
1.1 ⇥ 105 r50 = 0.27 + 0.04
0.03

quantified mass segregation between the

+ 0.04
= 0.28 0.02
challenge in computational astrophysics. The cluster-modeling group at NU has
A
NBH = 41
= 0.78 + 0.04

populations as the difference in their average

r50 0.03
+ 0.05

developed a sophisticated Monte Carlo approach

= 0.91 0.03 A
A

f (< r/rhl)
to stellar dynamics allowing us to model clusters radial position (!r50). From these models we took a 0.50
r50

of up to ~106 particles in ~1 week of computing total of 554 distinct ‘snapshots’ (at different times t
time. Our highly parallelized Cluster Monte Carlo > 9 Gyr), and 2D-projected all stars’ radial positions
code (CMC) models GCs more rapidly than a total of 50 different times each to match sky- 0.25

traditional N-body integrators, enabling us to projection in telescopes.

more fully explore the population of dense star 0.00
1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 0.5
clusters found in the Milky Way and other log(r/rhl)

galaxies. The code contains all relevant dynamics, Radial distributions of the two populations, showing
including 2-body scattering, 3- and 4-body reduced mass segregation for higher NBH.
encounters, and 3-body binary formation. CMC
also includes refined prescriptions for single and Globular Cluster 47 Tuc 3.0
Z/Z
binary stellar evolution. ESO/M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey 0.005
0.01
0.015
Recent discoveries of black hole (BH) candidates in galactic and extragalactic GCs
Title for Right Section:
3.5
0.025

have altered the traditional belief that GCs do not presently retain more than a 0.05
0.15
few stellar-mass BHs. While it is beyond doubt that GCs form a large number of 0.25
0.35
BHs (~1 per 1000 stars), it was thought that most were shortly ejected from the 4.0

⌘
0.5

Ncluster
cluster in energetic dynamical encounters within the dense cluster core. However,

NBH
0.75
1.0

⇣
new state-of-the-art simulations of GCs indicate that BHs are ejected far less

log
4.5
rapidly, pointing to a higher number of BHs retained in modern-day GCs.

Defining the high- and low-mass populations. 5.0

Detecting Black Holes With error bars corresponding to the uncertainty in

3D radial position (due to sky-projection), we
Observational detection of black holes is notoriously difficult. Directly, they can 5.5
plotted mass segregation (!r50) vs black hole 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8

be detected in binary systems, but only under very narrow and infrequent r50
population size (NBH) to obtain the predicted strong NBH vs. mass segregation (!r50) in our models, distinguished
conditions. Today, binary BHs can be detected from the gravitational waves that
3.0

anti-correlation between the two quantities. by metallicity.

they emit when they merge, but these mergers are rare and very infrequent.
A BH candidate in 47 Tuc 3925

A d d i t i o n a l l y, s o m e b i n a r i e s 3.5

containing a BH that is accreting

(drawing mass from) its companion Extracting Black Hole Population Size
star are observable as a Black Hole A Kernel Density Estimate (KDE) was applied to the correlation between !r50 and NBH found (above) in our CMC
4.0

⌘
Ncluster
X-ray binary (BH XRBs), so called

NBH
models. We then quantified !r50 in three globular clusters with known black hole candidates (M 10, M 22, and 47
because of the X-rays emitted from

⇣
Tuc) and input these !r50 mass estimates into KDE to obtain a distribution of NBH values for each cluster.

log
the in-falling stellar matter. The
4.5 47 Tuc M 10 M 22
The observational data for each cluster was
1400 200 600

accretor can be determined to be a

1

taken from publicly-available ACS Globular

1200 500 2

BH from the ratio of X-ray to radio 150 3

Cluster Survey, made using the Hubble Space 1000
5.0
waves in its emission spectrum. In
400

Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. 800

recent years, several stellar mass

NBH

100 300
Note that extensive data reduction was 600
BHs in globular clusters have been
necessary to calculate !r50 values compatible 5.5 200
400 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
detected using this method. 50

with our models, including photometric error

A
200 100

Cluster with Many BHs Observed BH XRBs in globular clusters. From

Figure 4. Radio/X-ray correlation in hard state and quiescent stellar-mass BHs. Black squares show field BHs from the literature (Miller-Jones et al. 2011;
Gallo, Miller & Fender 2012; Ratti et al. 2012; Corbel et al. 2013; Gallo et al. 2014), blue triangles show the transitional binary MSP systems (Hill et al. reduction, completeness correction, and the 0 0 0
Strader et al. (2012).
2011; Papitto et al. 2013; Deller et al. 2015), green diamonds show the magnetic CVs (Chanmugam & Dulk 1982; Abada-Simon et al. 1993; Mason & Gray 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12
2007), yellow circle shows the M22 candidates (Strader et al. 2012a), red circle shows the M62 candidate (Chomiuk et al. 2013), and purple circle shows 47
application of radial limits. r50
Tuc X9. Filled symbols are from simultaneous radio and X-ray data, whereas open symbols are non-simultaneous measurements. Black dotted line shows the
best-fitting relation for the BH systems (Lr ∝ L0.58
X ; Gallo et al. 2006). Blue dashed and dash–dotted lines show two possible radio/X-ray correlations for NS
KDEs for each of the three observed clusters.
Our group has designed an indirect method to
systems (Migliari & Fender 2006), and green line shows the maximum radio luminosity of non-magnetic accreting white dwarf systems in outburst (Körding
et al. 2008, 2011). X9 falls within the scatter of the best-fitting radio/X-ray correlation for BHs, and is too radio luminous to be a CV.
0.040
47 Tuc, r50

infer the presence and relative

In summary, while we cannot explicitly rule out X9 being a
size of BH
case of V1, we note the similarity to the broad-band spectra of sev- 0.035
47 Tuc,
M 10,
A

populations in GCs. The method

Froning et al.quantifies mass
r50
transitional millisecond pulsar, the available X-ray, optical, and UV eral dynamically confirmed quiescent BHs (McClintock et al. 2003;
Density, Mass Segregation (!)

data, taken together with the relatively high radio luminosity, lead 2011; Hynes & Robinson 2012), which could all be M 10, A

segregation, the tendency smaller

us to consider this explanation to be unlikely.
of high-mass stars toof the expected
fit by blackbodies of temperature 5000–13 000 K, with areas much
For 47 Tuc, M 10, and M 22, our 0.030
M 22, r50
Number of BHs (NBH)

(0.06–1.25 per cent) than the projected area M 22, A

aggregate closer to the cluster center than low- predicted BH population size
truncated quiescent accretion disc (i.e. radii of 0.01–0.09 R⊙ ). This
4.4 X9 as a black hole
emission was explained as either the impact point of the accretion
The high radio luminosity implied by our observations of X9 sug- stream on the disc (McClintock et al. 2003), or as emission from 0.025
mass
gests stars.of X9,This
an alternative identification phenomenon
as a stellar-mass BH. Com- the inner part of theresults
Robinson 2012).
from
disc, close to the truncation radius (Hynes & distributions peak at NBH ~8, 15, and 40,
parison of our radio measurements with the X-ray luminosity mea-
Cluster with Few BHs dynamical interactions with the centrally- whereas, within the 2-sigma confidence
PDF

sured by Heinke et al. (2005b) shows that the source lies very close The main caveat to this explanation is that the X-ray spectrum of 0.020
to the well-established radio/X-ray correlation for accreting stellar- X9 is difficult to reconcile with those of known quiescent BHs,
located
mass BHs (Fig. 4). AndBH while thepopulation
X-ray and radio observations
were separated by 8–10 yr, the relative stability of the radio flux
that whichpushes
at luminosities oflower-mass 33 −1
10 erg s are fit by relatively soft
power-law spectra with photon indices of ! ∼ 2.1 (Plotkin, Gallo
level, NBH can be up to ~100, 50, and
objects (stars) outward.
density between 2010 and 2013, and the X-ray flux between 1992
and 2002 (Verbunt & Hasinger 1998; Grindlay et al. 2001; Heinke
A larger BH population
& Jonker 2013). While no evidence for low-energy emission lines
close to 0.6 keV has been observed in any quiescent BH, the high
200, respectively. 0.015

leads to reduced mass

et al. 2005b) helps assuage (but does not eliminate) concerns about
strong source variability. segregation.
of such a line. Only three knownBy
column densities towards most such systems would have precluded
the detection quiescent systems 0.010
correlating
spectrum of V1 to be dominated mass segregation
Knigge et al. (2008) found the broad-band optical-through-UV
by an optically thick compo- sorptionto columnthedensities number
(XTE J1118+480, A0620−00, and MAXI J1659−152) have ab-
21
<5 × 10 cm (Plotkin of et al. 2013),
−2
NBH distributions for each
BHs in nova-like
our CV.models,However, as noted bywe Marsh, use mass emission segregation
nent of temperature ∼12 000 K and radius ∼0.18 R⊙ , consistent none of which have stringent published constraints on the presence
with a disc-dominated
Robinson & Wood (1994), there are no strong differences between
of low-energy lines. The only published quiescent spec-
trum of sufficiently high quality to investigate the presence of such
of the three observed 0.005

themeasurements
optical spectra of dwarf novae and thosein observed
of quiescent BHs. In the clusters
lines is that of V404 Cyg to estimate
(Bradley et al. 2007). That spectrum was clusters.
the number of BHs they presently contain.
0.000
0 50 100 150 200 250
MNRAS 453, 3918–3931 (2015) NBH

References This work was made possible by NU’s High-Performance computing cluster Quest, on which all CMC models were
run. NW acknowledges support from the ISGC, and a summger grant from NU. SC acknowledges Hubble Space
1) CMC Code Paper: Pattabiraman et al., 2013, ApJS, 204, 15
2) Black holes in Globular Clusters: Chatterjee, S., Rodriguez, C. L., & Rasio, F. A. 2017b, ApJ, 834, 68 Telescope Archival research grant HST-AR-14555.001-A (from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is
3) Observed Stellar Mass BHs in Globular Clusters: Strader et al., 2012, Nature, 490, 71 operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract
4) Chomiuk, L., Strader, J., Maccarone, T. J., Miller-Jones, J. C. A., Heinke, C., Noyola, E., Seth, A. C., & Ransom, S. 2013, ApJ, 777, 69 NAS5-26555).