Paper detail

Do we expect to detect electromagnetic radiation from merging stellar mass black binaries like GW150914? No

Context: The LIGO consortium announced the first direct detection of gravitation wave event GW150914 from two merging black holes; however the nature of the black holes are still not clear. Aims: We study whether electromagnetic radiation can be detected from merging stellar mass black binaries like GW150914. Methods: We briefly investigate the possible growth and merging processes of the two stellar mass black holes in the merging event of GW150914 detected by aLIGO, as clocked by a distant external observer. Our main results are: (1) The description of the black hole growth using stationary metric of a pre-existing black hole predicts strong electromagnetic radiation from merging black holes, which is inconsistent with GW150914; (2) Only gravitational wave radiation can be produced in the coalescence of two black holes such as that in the GW150914 event, if the black hole growth is described using time-dependent metric considering the influence of the in-falling matter onto a pre-existing black hole, as clocked by a distant external observer. Conclusions: Future high sensitivity detections of gravitational waves from merging black holes might be used to probe matter distribution and space-time geometry in the vicinity of the horizon. Perhaps the GW150914-like events can be identified with traditional astronomy observations only if the black holes are embedded in extremely dense medium before their final merge, when very strong electromagnetic radiation is produced and can escape from the system.