The formation of Gaia BH3

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Pina, Daniel Marín, Gieles, Mark, Rastello, Sara, Iorio, Giuliano
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Pina, Daniel Marín
Gieles, Mark
Rastello, Sara
Iorio, Giuliano
author_facet Pina, Daniel Marín
Gieles, Mark
Rastello, Sara
Iorio, Giuliano
contents The Gaia collaboration announced the discovery of a massive black hole (BH) with a low-mass giant star companion, Gaia BH3, located in the ED-2 stellar stream. The properties of Gaia BH3 bridge the gap between known Milky Way BHs and extragalactic BHs found with gravitational waves (GWs). We aim to determine the most likely formation scenario for Gaia BH3 in the progenitor cluster of the ED-2 stream. We perform $N$-body simulations of that progenitor cluster and find that, most likely, Gaia BH3 formed from a stellar binary that formed during cluster formation, which then underwent multiple dynamical interactions that significantly altered its properties, including exchanging the companion star. We highlight the importance of cluster dynamics and discard a formation scenario where it evolved in quasi-isolation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_07021
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The formation of Gaia BH3
Pina, Daniel Marín
Gieles, Mark
Rastello, Sara
Iorio, Giuliano
Astrophysics of Galaxies
The Gaia collaboration announced the discovery of a massive black hole (BH) with a low-mass giant star companion, Gaia BH3, located in the ED-2 stellar stream. The properties of Gaia BH3 bridge the gap between known Milky Way BHs and extragalactic BHs found with gravitational waves (GWs). We aim to determine the most likely formation scenario for Gaia BH3 in the progenitor cluster of the ED-2 stream. We perform $N$-body simulations of that progenitor cluster and find that, most likely, Gaia BH3 formed from a stellar binary that formed during cluster formation, which then underwent multiple dynamical interactions that significantly altered its properties, including exchanging the companion star. We highlight the importance of cluster dynamics and discard a formation scenario where it evolved in quasi-isolation.
title The formation of Gaia BH3
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07021