I've long been puzzled by the "forbidden zone" of black hole sizes. Why *wouldn't* smaller ones have merged to make BHs of all sizes? How are we so certain there even is a forbidden zone?
Although these mergers keep being detected by LIGO, etc, it seems to me it's highly unlikely to have them happening repeatedly, successively, to build up heftier black holes… I mean, I imagine that most of these mergers involved a binary system of very massive stars, each of them collapsing to a BH after a short life, and then merging into a heftier BH, but only after a very long time… the final stage of the merger is brief and violent, but it must've taken them a long time to gradually get closer and closer…
After the two of them have merged, how does the new BH encounter another one to merge again, and again, and again…? That would be unlikely, wouldn't it…?
Anyway, some of these mergers involve progenitor BHs that are already a bit “too” massive… how did they land into the forbidden zone in the first place…?
Lots of questions, which is good… this new kind of astronomy is shedding light on the inadequacy of our current understanding…
I guess. But who’s to say there are BHs that wander around — primal ones, maybe? — and they get attracted to each other and merge. We’re finding that a lot of our beliefs about the cosmos aren’t quite right. Maybe this is part of it?
I've long been puzzled by the "forbidden zone" of black hole sizes. Why *wouldn't* smaller ones have merged to make BHs of all sizes? How are we so certain there even is a forbidden zone?
Although these mergers keep being detected by LIGO, etc, it seems to me it's highly unlikely to have them happening repeatedly, successively, to build up heftier black holes… I mean, I imagine that most of these mergers involved a binary system of very massive stars, each of them collapsing to a BH after a short life, and then merging into a heftier BH, but only after a very long time… the final stage of the merger is brief and violent, but it must've taken them a long time to gradually get closer and closer…
After the two of them have merged, how does the new BH encounter another one to merge again, and again, and again…? That would be unlikely, wouldn't it…?
Anyway, some of these mergers involve progenitor BHs that are already a bit “too” massive… how did they land into the forbidden zone in the first place…?
Lots of questions, which is good… this new kind of astronomy is shedding light on the inadequacy of our current understanding…
I guess. But who’s to say there are BHs that wander around — primal ones, maybe? — and they get attracted to each other and merge. We’re finding that a lot of our beliefs about the cosmos aren’t quite right. Maybe this is part of it?