Collapsar Gamma-Ray Bursts Grind Their Black Hole Spins to a Halt

Abstract

The spin of a newly formed black hole (BH) at the center of a massive star evolves from its natal value due to two competing processes: accretion of gas angular momentum that increases the spin and extraction of BH angular momentum by outflows that decreases the spin. Ultimately, the final, equilibrium spin is set by a balance between both processes. In order for the BH to launch relativistic jets and power a γ -ray burst (GRB), the BH magnetic field needs to be dynamically important. Thus, we consider the case of a magnetically arrested disk (MAD) driving the spin evolution of the BH. By applying the semianalytic MAD BH spin evolution model of Lowell et al. to collapsars, we show that if the BH accretes ∼20% of its initial mass, its dimensionless spin inevitably reaches small values, a ≲ 0.2. For such spins, and for mass accretion rates inferred from collapsar simulations, we show that our semianalytic model reproduces the energetics of typical GRB jets, L _jet ∼ 10 ^50 erg s ^−1 . We show that our semianalytic model reproduces the nearly constant power of typical GRB jets. If the MAD onset is delayed, this allows powerful jets at the high end of the GRB luminosity distribution, L _jet ∼ 10 ^52 erg s ^−1 , but the final spin remains low, a ≲ 0.3. These results are consistent with the low spins inferred from gravitational wave detections of binary BH mergers. In a companion paper by Gottlieb et al., we use GRB observations to constrain the natal BH spin to be a ≃ 0.2.

Keywords

• Gamma-ray bursts
• Astrophysical black holes
• Relativistic jets
• Accretion