No Arabic abstract
During the inspiral and merger of a binary black hole, gravitational radiation is emitted anisotropically due to asymmetries in the merger configuration. This anisotropic radiation leads to a gravitational wave kick, or recoil velocity, as large as ~ 4000 km/sec. We investigate the effect gravitational recoil has on the retention of intermediate mass black holes (IMBH) within Galactic globular clusters. Assuming that our current understanding of IMBH-formation is correct and yields an IMBH-seed in every globular cluster, we find a significant problem retaining low mass IMBHs (1000 $Msun$) in the typical merger-rich globular cluster environment. Given a uniform black hole spin distribution and orientation and a Kroupa IMF, we find that at most 3% of the globular clusters can retain an IMBH larger than 1000 $Msun$ today. For a population of black holes that better approximates mass loss from winds and supernovae, we find that 16% of globulars can retain an IMBH larger than 1000 $Msun$. Our calculations show that if there are black holes of mass $M > 60 Msun$ in a cluster, repeated IMBH-BH encounters will eventually eject a 1000 $Msun$ IMBH with greater than 30% probability. As a consequence, a large population of rogue black holes may exist in our Milky Way halo. We discuss the dynamical implications of this subpopulation, and its possible connection to ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs).
The direct measurement of gravitational waves is a powerful tool for surveying the population of black holes across the universe. The first gravitational wave catalog from LIGO has detected black holes as heavy as $sim50~M_odot$, colliding when our Universe was about half its current age. However, there is yet no unambiguous evidence of black holes in the intermediate-mass range of $10^{2-5}~M_odot$. Recent electromagnetic observations have hinted at the existence of IMBHs in the local universe; however, their masses are poorly constrained. The likely formation mechanisms of IMBHs are also not understood. Here we make the case that multiband gravitational wave astronomy --specifically, joint observations by space- and ground-based gravitational wave detectors-- will be able to survey a broad population of IMBHs at cosmological distances. By utilizing general relativistic simulations of merging black holes and state-of-the-art gravitational waveform models, we classify three distinct population of binaries with IMBHs in the multiband era and discuss what can be observed about each. Our studies show that multiband observations involving the upgraded LIGO detector and the proposed space-mission LISA would detect the inspiral, merger and ringdown of IMBH binaries out to redshift ~2. Assuming that next-generation detectors, Einstein Telescope, and Cosmic Explorer, are operational during LISAs mission lifetime, we should have multiband detections of IMBH binaries out to redshift ~5. To facilitate studies on multiband IMBH sources, here we investigate the multiband detectability of IMBH binaries. We provide analytic relations for the maximum redshift of multiband detectability, as a function of black hole mass, for various detector combinations. Our study paves the way for future work on what can be learned from IMBH observations in the era of multiband gravitational wave astronomy.
Coalescing binary black holes experience a ``kick due to anisotropic emission of gravitational waves with an amplitude as great as 200$ km/s. We examine the orbital evolution of black holes that have been kicked from the centers of triaxial galaxies. Time scales for orbital decay are generally longer in triaxial galaxies than in equivalent spherical galaxies, since a kicked black hole does not return directly through the dense center where the dynamical friction force is highest. We evaluate this effect by constructing self-consistent triaxial models and integrating the trajectories of massive particles after they are ejected from the center; the dynamical friction force is computed directly from the velocity dispersion tensor of the self-consistent model. We find return times that are several times longer than in a spherical galaxy with the same radial density profile, particularly in galaxy models with dense centers, implying a substantially grea
In many galactic nuclei, a nuclear stellar cluster (NSC) co-exists with a supermassive black hole (SMBH). In this work, we explore the idea that the NSC forms before the SMBH through the merger of several stellar clusters that may contain intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). These IMBHs can subsequently grow by mergers and accretion to form an SMBH. To check the observable consequences of this proposed SMBH seeding mechanism, we created an observationally motivated mock population of galaxies, in which NSCs are constructed by aggregating stellar clusters that may or may not contain IMBHs. We model the growth of IMBHs in the NSCs through gravitational wave (GW) mergers with other IMBHs and gas accretion. In the case of GW mergers, the merged BH can either be retained or ejected depending on the GW recoil kick it receives. The likelihood of retaining the merged BH increases if we consider growth of IMBHs in the NSC through gas accretion. We find that nucleated lower-mass galaxies ($rm M_{star} lesssim 10^{9} M_{odot}$; e.g. M33) have an SMBH seed occupation fraction of about 0.3 to 0.5. This occupation fraction increases with galaxy stellar mass and for more massive galaxies ($rm 10^{9} M_{odot} lesssim rm M_{star} lesssim 10^{11} M_{odot}$), it is between 0.5 and 0.8, depending on how BH growth is modelled. These occupation fractions are consistent with observational constraints. Furthermore, allowing for BH growth also allows us to reproduce the observed diversity in the mass range of SMBHs in the $rm M_{rm NSC} - M_{rm BH}$ plane.
Gravitational-wave memory refers to the permanent displacement of the test masses in an idealized (freely-falling) gravitational-wave interferometer. Inspiraling binaries produce a particularly interesting form of memory--the Christodoulou memory. Although it originates from nonlinear interactions at 2.5 post-Newtonian order, the Christodoulou memory affects the gravitational-wave amplitude at leading (Newtonian) order. Previous calculations have computed this non-oscillatory amplitude correction during the inspiral phase of binary coalescence. Using an effective-one-body description calibrated with the results of numerical relativity simulations, the evolution of the memory during the inspiral, merger, and ringdown phases, as well as the memorys final saturation value, are calculated. Using this model for the memory, the prospects for its detection are examined, particularly for supermassive black hole binary coalescences that LISA will detect with high signal-to-noise ratios. Coalescing binary black holes also experience center-of-mass recoil due to the anisotropic emission of gravitational radiation. These recoils can manifest themselves in the gravitational-wave signal in the form of a linear memory and a Doppler shift of the quasi-normal-mode frequencies. The prospects for observing these effects are also discussed.
We describe ongoing searches for intermediate-mass black holes with M_BH ~ 100-10^5 M_sun. We review a range of search mechanisms, both dynamical and those that rely on accretion signatures. We find that dynamical and accretion signatures alike point to a high fraction of 10^9-10^10 M_sun galaxies hosting black holes with M_BH<10^5 M_sun. In contrast, there are no solid detections of black holes in globular clusters. There are few observational constraints on black holes in any environment with M_BH ~ 100-10^4 M_sun. Considering low-mass galaxies with dynamical black hole masses and constraining limits, we find that the M_BH-sigma_* relation continues unbroken to M_BH~10^5 M_sun, albeit with large scatter. We believe the scatter is at least partially driven by a broad range in black hole mass, since the occupation fraction appears to be relatively high in these galaxies. We fold the observed scaling relations with our empirical limits on occupation fraction and the galaxy mass function to put observational bounds on the black hole mass function in galaxy nuclei. We are pessimistic that local demographic observations of galaxy nuclei alone could constrain seeding mechanisms, although either high-redshift luminosity functions or robust measurements of off-nuclear black holes could begin to discriminate models.