Constraints from Gravitational-wave Detections of Binary Black Hole Mergers on the 12C(α, γ)16O Rate

Gravitational-wave detections are starting to allow us to probe the physical processes in the evolution of very massive stars through the imprints they leave on their final remnants. Stellar evolution theory predicts the existence of a gap in the black hole mass distribution at high mass due to the effects of pair instability. Previously, we showed that the location of the gap is robust against model uncertainties, but it does depend sensitively on the uncertain C-12(alpha, gamma)O-16 rate. This rate is of great astrophysical significance and governs the production of oxygen at the expense of carbon. We use the open-source MESA stellar evolution code to evolve massive helium stars to probe the location of the mass gap. We find that the maximum black hole mass below the gap varies between 40 M-circle dot and 90 M-circle dot, depending on the strength of the uncertain 12C(alpha, gamma)O-16 reaction rate. With the first 10 gravitational-wave detections of black holes, we constrain the astrophysical S-factor for 12C(alpha, gamma)O-16, at 300 keV, to S-300 > 175 keV b at 68% confidence. With O(50) detected binary black hole mergers, we expect to constrain the S-factor to within +/- 10-30 keV b. We also highlight a role for independent constraints from electromagnetic transient surveys. The unambiguous detection of pulsational pair-instability supernovae would imply that S-300 > 79 keV b. Degeneracies with other model uncertainties need to be investigated further, but probing nuclear stellar astrophysics poses a promising science case for the future gravitational-wave detectors.