Can Thorne-Zytkow objects source GW190814-type events?

The LIGO-Virgo collaboration reported in their third run the coalescence event GW190814 involving a 2.6 M-circle dot object with a 23 M-circle dot black hole. In this article we study the conditions under which Thorne-Zytkow objects (TZOs) can be connected to that type of event. We evaluate first the rate of appearance of TZOs in the local Universe. Under the assumption that TZOs eventually become low mass gap black holes we evaluate how those black holes end up in binaries with other stellar mass black holes and compare to the reported rate for GW190814-type of events (1-23 Gpc(-3) yr(-1)). We find that TZOs in dense stellar clusters can not explain the LIGO-Virgo rate without a TZO population in the field providing a dominant contribution. We also find that TZOs formed within hierarchical triple systems in the field with the third more distant star being the progenitor of a stellar mass black hole may be able to give a rate comparable to that of GW190814-type events. In that case, future observations should discover mergers between stellar mass and low mass gap black holes, with the lower mass spanning the entire low mass gap range.

Automated summary

This article examines the connection between Thorne-Zytkow objects (TZOs) and GW190814-type events. It finds that TZOs in dense stellar clusters cannot explain the rate of such events, but TZOs formed within hierarchical triple systems may be able to provide a comparable rate.