The role of massive Population III binary systems in the formation of gravitational wave radiation source and in the cosmic reionization

  • Lee, Hunchul (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Yoon, Sung-Chul (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University)
  • Published : 2017.10.10

Abstract

The Population III (Pop III) stars are thought to be massive. If massive Pop III stars form binary system and they experience mass transfer via the Roche lobe overflow, this may significantly change the properties of the system. For example, mass transfer in such system may shorten the period of the system, forming short period binary black hole (BBH) system, which is the most promising candidate for recently detected gravitational wave radiation sources. Also, there is an expectation that due to the stripped envelope of donor star by mass transfer, this system can play a significant role in the cosmic reionization by emitting more UV photons. However, this outcome highly depends on the initial properties of the system. We perform grid calculation on Pop III binary models with various initial primary masses (20 ~ 100 solar mass), initial separations, and initial mass ratios (q = 0.5 ~ 0.9). We find that 1) in most cases binary models show no increase in the number of ionizing photons and 2) formation of short period BBH system via mass transfer is highly unlikely.

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