MOCCA-SURVEY Database. I. Eccentric Black Hole Mergers during Binary–Single Interactions in Globular Clusters

Abstract

Abstract We estimate the population of eccentric gravitational wave (GW) binary black hole (BBH) mergers forming during binary–single interactions in globular clusters (GCs), using ∼800 GC models that were evolved using the MOCCA code for star cluster simulations as part of the MOCCA-Survey Database I project. By re-simulating BH binary–single interactions extracted from this set of GC models using an N-body code that includes GW emission at the 2.5 post-Newtonian level, we find that ∼10% of all the BBHs assembled in our GC models that merge at present time form during chaotic binary–single interactions, and that about half of this sample have an eccentricity >0.1 at 10 Hz. We explicitly show that this derived rate of eccentric mergers is ∼100 times higher than one would find with a purely Newtonian N-body code. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the eccentric fraction can be accurately estimated using a simple analytical formalism when the interacting BHs are of similar mass, a result that serves as the first successful analytical description of eccentric GW mergers forming during three-body interactions in realistic GCs.