Possible Short Gamma-Ray Bursts Associated with Black Hole - Black Hole Mergers

Bing Zhang

Published 2016-02-15Version 1

The discovery of GW 150914 suggests that double black hole (BH-BH) mergers are common in the universe. If at least one of the two merging black holes carries a small amount of charge, the inspiral of the BH-BH system would drive a magnetic dipole normal to the orbital plane. A magnetosphere would be developed, and the system would behave like a giant pulsar with increasing wind power. If the BH charge can be as large as a factor of $\hat q \sim 10^{-15}$ of the critical charge $Q_c$ of the BH, a detectable short-duration GRB would be generated right before the final coalescence. The GRB is supposed to have a short duration, nearly isotropic emission, and a delay with respect to the gravitational wave chirp signal. The putative short GRB coincident with GW 150914 detected with {\em Fermi} GBM can be interpreted with this model. The detections or non-detections of such GRBs associated with future BH-BH merger gravitational wave sources would lead to constraints on the charges carried by isolate black holes.