On the Mass Distribution of Stellar-Mass Black Holes

The observational stellar-mass black hole mass distribution exhibits a maximum at about 8 M⊙. It can be explained via the details of the massive star evolution, supernova explosions, or consequent black hole evolution. We propose another explanation, connected with an underestimated influence of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Malkov O. Yu.
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: De Gruyter 2014-12-01
Series:Open Astronomy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/astro-2017-0190
Description
Summary:The observational stellar-mass black hole mass distribution exhibits a maximum at about 8 M⊙. It can be explained via the details of the massive star evolution, supernova explosions, or consequent black hole evolution. We propose another explanation, connected with an underestimated influence of the relation between the initial stellar mass and the compact remnant mass. We show that an unimodal observational mass distribution of black holes can be produced by a power-law initial mass function and a monotonic “remnant mass versus initial mass” relation.
ISSN:2543-6376