UC Santa Cruz

There are millions of undetected black holes wandering through our galaxy. Observatories like Chandra, LIGO, and more recently, Gaia, have provided valuable insights into the configurations of these elusive objects when residing in binary systems. Motivated by these advances, we study, for the first time, the enhanced accretion of metals from the interstellar medium (ISM) onto low-mass companions in binary systems with highly unequal mass ratios, utilizing a series of hydrodynamical simulations. Our study demonstrates that a stellar companion’s metal accretion history from the ISM alone, from its formation to the present, can significantly influence its surface abundance, especially when enhanced by a massive black hole companion. However, this effect is likely only measurable in stars that are still on the main sequence. Once a stellar companion evolves off the main sequence, similar to what has been observed with the Gaia BH3 companion, the initial dredge-up process is likely to erase any excess surface abundance resulting from the metals that were accreted. As we discover more unequal mass ratio binary systems, it is crucial to understand how the observed metallicity of Sun-like companions may differ from their birth metallicity, especially if they are not yet evolved.