English

Dynamical formation of black hole binaries in dense star clusters: Rapid cluster evolution code

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2024-08-20 v3 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Gravitational-wave observations have just started probing the properties of black hole binary merger populations. The observation of binaries with very massive black holes and significantly asymmetric masses motivates the study of dense star clusters as astrophysical environments which can produce such events dynamically. In this paper we present Rapster (for "Rapid cluster evolution"), a new code designed to rapidly model binary black hole population synthesis and the evolution of massive star clusters based on simple, yet realistic prescriptions. We also perform a thorough comparison with the Cluster Monte Carlo code and find generally good agreement. The code can be used to generate large populations of dynamically formed binary black holes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.10055,
  title  = {Dynamical formation of black hole binaries in dense star clusters: Rapid cluster evolution code},
  author = {Konstantinos Kritos and Vladimir Strokov and Vishal Baibhav and Emanuele Berti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.10055},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

34 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Manuscript and code were significantly revised in response to the referees' comments. Matches the published version. The Rapster code and data are publicly available at https://github.com/Kkritos/Rapster and https://zenodo.org/records/10626210

R2 v1 2026-06-28T03:56:22.866Z