Collapse of Rotating Very Massive Stellar Cores Leading to a Black Hole and a Massive Disk as a Source of Gravitational Waves

Abstract We derive models of rotating very massive stellar cores with mass ≈10 2 –10 4 M ⊙ that are marginally stable to the pair-unstable collapse, assuming that the core is isentropic and composed primarily of oxygen. It is shown that cores with mass ≲10 3 M ⊙ can form a massive disk with the mass more than 10% of the core mass around the formed black hole if the core is rotating with more than 30% of the Keplerian limit. We also indicate that the formation of rapidly spinning massive black holes such as the black holes of GW231123 naturally accompanies massive disk formation. By using the result of our previous study, which showed that the massive disk is unstable to the nonaxisymmetric deformation, we predict the amplitude and frequency of gravitational waves and show that the collapse of rotating very massive stellar cores can be a promising source of gravitational waves for the Einstein Telescope. The detection of such gravitational waves will provide us with important information about the formation process of intermediate mass black holes.