TY - JOUR

T1 - On the Maximum Stellar Rotation to form a Black Hole without an Accompanying Luminous Transient

AU - Murguia-Berthier, Ariadna

AU - Batta, Aldo

AU - Janiuk, Agnieszka

AU - Ramirez-Ruiz, Enrico

AU - Mandel, Ilya

AU - Noble, Scott C.

AU - Everson, Rosa Wallace

PY - 2020/10/1

Y1 - 2020/10/1

N2 - The collapse of a massive star with low angular momentum content is commonly thought to result in the formation of a black hole without an accompanying bright transient. Our goal in this Letter is to understand the flow in and around a newly formed black hole, involving accretion and rotation, via general relativistic hydrodynamics simulations aimed at studying the conditions under which infalling material can accrete without forming a centrifugally supported structure and, as a result, generate no effective feedback. On the other hand, if the feedback from the black hole is significant, the collapse would be halted and we suggest that the event is likely to be followed by a bright transient. We find that feedback is only efficient if the specific angular momentum of the infalling material at the innermost stable circular orbit exceeds that of geodesic circular flow at that radius by at least 20%. We use the results of our simulations to constrain the maximal stellar rotation rates of the disappearing massive progenitors PHL293B-LBV and N6946-BH1, and to provide an estimate of the overall rate of disappearing massive stars. We find that about a few percent of single O-type stars with measured rotational velocities are expected to spin below the critical value before collapse and are thus predicted to vanish without a trace.

AB - The collapse of a massive star with low angular momentum content is commonly thought to result in the formation of a black hole without an accompanying bright transient. Our goal in this Letter is to understand the flow in and around a newly formed black hole, involving accretion and rotation, via general relativistic hydrodynamics simulations aimed at studying the conditions under which infalling material can accrete without forming a centrifugally supported structure and, as a result, generate no effective feedback. On the other hand, if the feedback from the black hole is significant, the collapse would be halted and we suggest that the event is likely to be followed by a bright transient. We find that feedback is only efficient if the specific angular momentum of the infalling material at the innermost stable circular orbit exceeds that of geodesic circular flow at that radius by at least 20%. We use the results of our simulations to constrain the maximal stellar rotation rates of the disappearing massive progenitors PHL293B-LBV and N6946-BH1, and to provide an estimate of the overall rate of disappearing massive stars. We find that about a few percent of single O-type stars with measured rotational velocities are expected to spin below the critical value before collapse and are thus predicted to vanish without a trace.

KW - Relativistic disks

KW - Accretion

KW - Massive stars

KW - Hydrodynamical simulations

KW - General relativity

KW - FAILED SUPERNOVAE

KW - ACCRETION DISCS

KW - CORE-COLLAPSE

KW - FLOWS

KW - VARIABILITY

KW - SIMULATIONS

KW - EVOLUTION

KW - SEARCH

KW - SHOCKS

KW - DISKS

U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/abb818

DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/abb818

M3 - Letter

VL - 901

JO - The Astrophysical Journal Letters

JF - The Astrophysical Journal Letters

SN - 2041-8205

IS - 2

M1 - 24

ER -