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1. Evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates for LIGO/Virgo binary black holes

   https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201936528  

   Belczynski, K.; Klencki, J.; Fields, C. E.; Olejak, A.; Berti, E.; Meynet, G.; Fryer, C. L.; Holz, D. E.; O’Shaughnessy, R.; Brown, D. A.; et al (April 2020, Astronomy & Astrophysics)

   All ten LIGO/Virgo binary black hole (BH-BH) coalescences reported following the O1/O2 runs have near-zero effective spins. There are only three potential explanations for this. If the BH spin magnitudes are large, then: (i) either both BH spin vectors must be nearly in the orbital plane or (ii) the spin angular momenta of the BHs must be oppositely directed and similar in magnitude. Then there is also the possibility that (iii) the BH spin magnitudes are small. We consider the third hypothesis within the framework of the classical isolated binary evolution scenario of the BH-BH merger formation. We test three models of angular momentum transport in massive stars: a mildly efficient transport by meridional currents (as employed in the Geneva code), an efficient transport by the Tayler-Spruit magnetic dynamo (as implemented in the MESA code), and a very-efficient transport (as proposed by Fuller et al.) to calculate natal BH spins. We allow for binary evolution to increase the BH spins through accretion and account for the potential spin-up of stars through tidal interactions. Additionally, we update the calculations of the stellar-origin BH masses, including revisions to the history of star formation and to the chemical evolution across cosmic time. We find that we can simultaneously match the observed BH-BH merger rate density and BH masses and BH-BH effective spins. Models with efficient angular momentum transport are favored. The updated stellar-mass weighted gas-phase metallicity evolution now used in our models appears to be key for obtaining an improved reproduction of the LIGO/Virgo merger rate estimate. Mass losses during the pair-instability pulsation supernova phase are likely to be overestimated if the merger GW170729 hosts a BH more massive than 50  M ⊙ . We also estimate rates of black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) mergers from recent LIGO/Virgo observations. If, in fact. angular momentum transport in massive stars is efficient, then any (electromagnetic or gravitational wave) observation of a rapidly spinning BH would indicate either a very effective tidal spin up of the progenitor star (homogeneous evolution, high-mass X-ray binary formation through case A mass transfer, or a spin- up of a Wolf-Rayet star in a close binary by a close companion), significant mass accretion by the hole, or a BH formation through the merger of two or more BHs (in a dense stellar cluster). 

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2. Three-dimensional General-relativistic Simulations of Neutrino-driven Winds from Rotating Proto-neutron Stars

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac69da  

   Desai, Dhruv; Siegel, Daniel M.; Metzger, Brian D. (May 2022, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract We explore the effects of rapid rotation on the properties of neutrino-heated winds from proto-neutron stars (PNS) formed in core-collapse supernovae or neutron-star mergers by means of three-dimensional general-relativistic hydrodynamical simulations with M0 neutrino transport. We focus on conditions characteristic of a few seconds into the PNS cooling evolution when the neutrino luminosities obey $L_{{\nu }_e}+L_{{\overline{\nu }}_e}\approx 7\times {10}^{51}$erg s⁻¹, and over which most of the wind mass loss will occur. After an initial transient phase, all of our models reach approximately steady-state outflow solutions with positive energies and sonic surfaces captured on the computational grid. Our nonrotating and slower rotating models (angular velocity relative to Keplerian Ω/Ω_K≲ 0.4; spin periodP≳ 2 ms) generate approximately spherically symmetric outflows with properties in good agreement with previous PNS wind studies. By contrast, our most rapidly spinning PNS solutions (Ω/Ω_K≳ 0.75;P≈ 1 ms) generate outflows focused in the rotational equatorial plane with much higher mass-loss rates (by over an order of magnitude), lower velocities, lower entropy, and lower asymptotic electron fractions, than otherwise similar nonrotating wind solutions. Although such rapidly spinning PNS are likely rare in nature, their atypical nucleosynthetic composition and outsized mass yields could render them important contributors of light neutron-rich nuclei compared to more common slowly rotating PNS birth. Our calculations pave the way to including the combined effects of rotation and a dynamically important large-scale magnetic field on the wind properties within a three-dimensional GRMHD framework. 

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3. Probing the progenitors of spinning binary black-hole mergers with long gamma-ray bursts

   Bavera, Simone S.; Fragos, Tassos; Zapartas, Emmanouil; Ramirez-Ruiz, Enrico; Marchant, Pablo; Kelley, Luke Z.; Zevin, Michael; Andrews, Jeff J.; Coughlin, Scott; Dotter, Aaron; et al (June 2021, ArXivorg)

   null (Ed.)

   Long gamma-ray bursts are associated with the core-collapse of massive, rapidly spinning stars. However, the believed efficient angular momentum transport in stellar interiors 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 sub-population of spinning, merging binary black holes, but also lead to long gamma-ray bursts at the time of black-hole formation, with rates matching the empirical ones. We find that ≈10% of the GWTC-2 reported binary black holes had a long gamma-ray burst associated with their formation, with GW190517 and GW190719 having a probability of ≈85% and ≈60%, respectively, being among them. 

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4. Collapsar Black Holes Are Likely Born Slowly Spinning

   https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ace779  

   Gottlieb, Ore; Jacquemin-Ide, Jonatan; Lowell, Beverly; Tchekhovskoy, Alexander; Ramirez-Ruiz, Enrico (July 2023, The Astrophysical Journal Letters)

   Abstract Collapsing stars constitute the main black hole (BH) formation channel, and are occasionally associated with the launch of relativistic jets that powerγ-ray bursts (GRBs). Thus, collapsars offer an opportunity to infer the natal (before spin-up/down by accretion) BH spin directly from observations. We show that once the BH saturates with a large-scale magnetic flux, the jet power is dictated by the BH spin and mass accretion rate. Core-collapse simulations by Halevi et al. and GRB observations favor stellar density profiles that yield an accretion rate of $\dot{m}\approx {10}^{-2}{M}_{\odot }{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, weakly dependent on time. This leaves the spin as the main factor that governs the jet power. By comparing the jet power to characteristic GRB luminosities, we find that the majority of BHs associated with jets are likely born slowly spinning with a dimensionless spin ofa≃ 0.2, ora≃ 0.5 for wobbling jets, with the main uncertainty originating in the unknownγ-ray radiative efficiency. This result could be applied to the entire core-collapse BH population, unless an anticorrelation between the stellar magnetic field and angular momentum is present. In a companion paper, Jacquemin-Ide et al., we show that regardless of the natal spin, the extraction of BH rotational energy leads to spin-down toa≲ 0.2, consistent with gravitational-wave observations. We verify our results by performing the first 3D general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of collapsar jets with characteristic GRB energies, powered by slowly spinning BHs. We find that jets of typical GRB power struggle to escape from the star, providing the first numerical indication that many jets fail to generate a GRB. 

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5. 3D MHD simulations of accretion on to stars with tilted magnetic and rotational axes

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1724  

   Romanova, M M; Koldoba, A V; Ustyugova, G V; Blinova, A A; Lai, D; Lovelace, R V (July 2021, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT We present results of global 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations of accretion on to magnetized stars where both the magnetic and rotational axes of the star are tilted about the rotational axis of the disc. We observed that initially the inner parts of the disc are warped, tilted, and precess due to the magnetic interaction between the magnetosphere and the disc. Later, larger tilted discs form with the size increasing with the magnetic moment of the star. The normal vector to the discs are tilted at different angles, from ∼5°–10° up to ∼30°–40°. Small tilts may result from the winding of the magnetic field lines about the rotational axis of the star and the action of the magnetic force which tends to align the disc. Another possible explanation is the magnetic Bardeen–Petterson effect in which the disc settles in the equatorial plane of the star due to precessional and viscous torques in the disc. Tilted discs slowly precess with the time-scale of the order of ∼50 Keplerian periods at the reference radius (∼3 stellar radii). Our results can be applied to different types of stars where signs of tilted discs and/or slow precession have been observed. 

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