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PreprintCC BY 4.0arXiv

Fast Dynamical Modelling of Milky Way Globular Clusters -- II. Impacts of Black Hole Prescriptions

  • Nolan Dickson
  • Vincent Hénault-Brunet
  • Fotios Fronimos Pouliasis
  • Mark Gieles
  • Daniel Marín Pina
  • Peter J. Smith
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

The populations of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in globular clusters (GCs) play a key role in their dynamical evolution, however the mechanisms surrounding their formation and retention are uncertain. In this work, we extend the analysis of Paper I by fitting coupled rapid cluster evolution and multimass equilibrium models to a large sample of Milky Way GCs, under a variety of prescriptions for stellar evolution, BH formation and supernovae (SN) natal kicks. We explore the impacts of adopting SSE or PARSEC (through SEVN) prescriptions for BH initial-final mass relations, the rapid or delayed SN fallback mechanisms, and an ad hoc grid of kick strengths ejecting between 40 and 80 per cent of all BHs formed. All models reproduce the same present-day conditions despite starting from notably different initial BH populations, due to the correlation found between the initial cluster densities and initial BH mass fractions. A linear relationship is found between the (log) initial half-mass density and the initial BH mass fraction, with the SEVN models resulting in median densities (ρh,0 ∼ 107.2±1.1 M⊙ pc−3) nearly an order of magnitude higher than those of SSE (ρh,0 ∼ 106.4±0.9 M⊙ pc−3). We also find that both the bottom-light initial mass functions and the present-day BH mass fractions previously inferred are relatively robust against the stellar evolution models and natal kick prescriptions assumed. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results on the expected numbers and properties of dynamical binary-BH mergers, and the growth of intermediate-mass BHs.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@misc{dickson2026fast,
  title = {{Fast Dynamical Modelling of Milky Way Globular Clusters -- II. Impacts of Black Hole Prescriptions}},
  author = {Nolan Dickson and Vincent Hénault-Brunet and Fotios Fronimos Pouliasis and Mark Gieles and Daniel Marín Pina and Peter J. Smith},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.10955},
  eprint = {2609.10955},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10955},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - UNPB
TI  - Fast Dynamical Modelling of Milky Way Globular Clusters -- II. Impacts of Black Hole Prescriptions
AU  - Nolan Dickson
AU  - Vincent Hénault-Brunet
AU  - Fotios Fronimos Pouliasis
AU  - Mark Gieles
AU  - Daniel Marín Pina
AU  - Peter J. Smith
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/10
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.10955
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10955
AB  - The populations of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in globular clusters (GCs) play a key role in their dynamical evolution, however the mechanisms surrounding their formation and retention are uncertain. In this work, we extend the analysis of Paper I by fitting coupled rapid cluster evolution and multimass equilibrium models to a large sample of Milky Way GCs, under a variety of prescriptions for stellar evolution, BH formation and supernovae (SN) natal kicks. We explore the impacts of adopting SSE or PARSEC (through SEVN) prescriptions for BH initial-final mass relations, the rapid or delayed SN fallback mechanisms, and an ad hoc grid of kick strengths ejecting between 40 and 80 per cent of all BHs formed. All models reproduce the same present-day conditions despite starting from notably different initial BH populations, due to the correlation found between the initial cluster densities and initial BH mass fractions. A linear relationship is found between the (log) initial half-mass density and the initial BH mass fraction, with the SEVN models resulting in median densities (ρ_h,0 ∼ 10^7.2±1.1 M_⊙ pc^−3) nearly an order of magnitude higher than those of SSE (ρ_h,0 ∼ 10^6.4±0.9 M_⊙ pc^−3). We also find that both the bottom-light initial mass functions and the present-day BH mass fractions previously inferred are relatively robust against the stellar evolution models and natal kick prescriptions assumed. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results on the expected numbers and properties of dynamical binary-BH mergers, and the growth of intermediate-mass BHs.
ER  -