Massive black hole growth using the star gulping mechanism

Abstract

"The evolution of merging black holes (BHs) and their associated processes will be the center-piece study for the upcoming gravitational waves (GWs) observatories, including the LISA Space Mission from ESA. We ran simulations specifically for studying the BH growth, in order to provide estimates regarding the detection rates for the future GW laboratories. Here, we describe the results of our investigations for a new implementation regarding the BH growth, star gulping (SG), in which stars are absorbed by BHs. The current scientific literature emphasizes two main mechanisms for the growth of BHs: accretion of surrounding material and merging with another BH. By taking into account both methods, one can begin to model the growth processes of the most massive BHs (MBHs) from the moment of their origin to current observations. Our previous work showed that even if you consider these processes at their maximum, it is very difficult to grow BHs to the masses and concentrations that we measure today. Therefore, we performed detailed simulations in order to study another growth mechanism, star gulping (SG), that has the potential to add more mass to BHs."