Rui, Nicholas Z. and Weatherford, Newlin C. and Kremer, Kyle and Chatterjee, Sourav and Fragione, Giacomo and Rasio, Frederic A. and Rodriguez, Carl L. and Ye, Claire S. (2021) No Black Holes in NGC 6397. . (Unpublished) https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20210511-121029138
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Abstract
Recently, Vitral & Mamon (2021) detected a central concentration of dark objects in the core-collapsed globular cluster NGC 6397, which could be interpreted as a subcluster of stellar-mass black holes. However, it is well established theoretically that any significant number of black holes in the cluster would provide strong dynamical heating and is fundamentally inconsistent with this cluster's core-collapsed profile. Claims of intermediate-mass black holes in core-collapsed clusters should similarly be treated with suspicion, for reasons that have been understood theoretically for many decades. Instead, the central dark population in NGC 6397 is exactly accounted for by a compact subsystem of white dwarfs, as we demonstrate here by inspection of a previously published model that provides a good fit to this cluster. These central subclusters of heavy white dwarfs are in fact a generic feature of core-collapsed clusters, while central black hole subclusters are present in all non-collapsed clusters.
Item Type: | Report or Paper (Discussion Paper) | ||||||||||||||||
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Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20210511-121029138 | ||||||||||||||||
Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20210511-121029138 | ||||||||||||||||
Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | ||||||||||||||||
ID Code: | 109078 | ||||||||||||||||
Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | ||||||||||||||||
Deposited By: | Tony Diaz | ||||||||||||||||
Deposited On: | 11 May 2021 19:32 | ||||||||||||||||
Last Modified: | 11 May 2021 19:32 |
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