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Register a new userA massive binary black-hole system in OJ287 and a test of general relativity
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Tests of Einsteins general theory of relativity have mostly been carried out in weak gravitational fields where the space-time curvature effects are first-order deviations from Newtons theory. Binary pulsars provide a means of probing the strong gravitational field around a neutron star, but strong-field effects may be best tested in systems containing black holes. Here we report such a test in a close binary system of two candidate black holes in the quasar OJ287. This quasar shows quasi-periodic optical outbursts at 12 yr intervals, with two outburst peaks per interval. The latest outburst occurred in September 2007, within a day of the time predicted by the binary black-hole model and general relativity. The observations confirm the binary nature of the system and also provide evidence for the loss of orbital energy in agreement (within 10 per cent) with the emission of gravitational waves from the system. In the absence of gravitational wave emission the outburst would have happened twenty days later.
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OJ287 is a quasi-periodic quasar with roughly 12 year optical cycles. It displays prominent outbursts which are predictable in a binary black hole model. The model predicted a major optical outburst in December 2015. We found that the outburst did occur within the expected time range, peaking on 2015 December 5 at magnitude 12.9 in the optical R-band. Based on Swift/XRT satellite measurements and optical polarization data, we find that it included a major thermal component. Its timing provides an accurate estimate for the spin of the primary black hole, chi = 0.313 +- 0.01. The present outburst also confirms the established general relativistic properties of the system such as the loss of orbital energy to gravitational radiation at the 2 % accuracy level and it opens up the possibility of testing the black hole no-hair theorem with a 10 % accuracy during the present decade.
Einsteins theory of gravity, General Relativity, has been precisely tested on Solar System scales, but the long-range nature of gravity is still poorly constrained. The nearby strong gravitational lens, ESO 325-G004, provides a laboratory to probe the weak-field regime of gravity and measure the spatial curvature generated per unit mass, $gamma$. By reconstructing the observed light profile of the lensed arcs and the observed spatially resolved stellar kinematics with a single self-consistent model, we conclude that $gamma = 0.97 pm 0.09$ at 68% confidence. Our result is consistent with the prediction of 1 from General Relativity and provides a strong extragalactic constraint on the weak-field metric of gravity.
Results from regular monitoring of relativistic compact binaries like PSR 1913+16 are consistent with the dominant (quadrupole) order emission of gravitational waves (GWs). We show that observations associated with the binary black hole central engine of blazar OJ 287 demand the inclusion of gravitational radiation reaction effects beyond the quadrupolar order. It turns out that even the effects of certain hereditary contributions to GW emission are required to predict impact flare timings of OJ 287. We develop an approach that incorporates this effect into the binary black hole model for OJ~287. This allows us to demonstrate an excellent agreement between the observed impact flare timings and those predicted from ten orbital cycles of the binary black hole central engine model. The deduced rate of orbital period decay is nine orders of magnitude higher than the observed rate in PSR 1913+16, demonstrating again the relativistic nature of OJ 287s central engine. Finally, we argue that precise timing of the predicted 2019 impact flare should allow a test of the celebrated black hole no-hair theorem at the 10% level.
At the 20-th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics there was a plenary talk devoted to the recent developments in classical Relativity. In that talk the problems of gravitational collapse, collisions of black holes, and of black holes as celestial bodies were discussed. But probably the problems of the internal structure of black holes are a real great challenge. In my talk I want to outline the recent achievements in our understanding of the nature of the singularity (and beyond!) inside a realistic rotating black hole. This presentation also addresses the following questions: Can we see what happens inside a black hole? Can a falling observer cross the singularity without being crushed? An answer to these questions is probably yes.
A key goal of the Event Horizon Telescope is to observe the shadow cast by a black hole. Recent simulations have shown that binary black holes, the progenitors of gravitational waves, present shadows with fractal structure. Here we study the binary shadow structure using techniques from nonlinear dynamics, recognising shadows as exit basins of open Hamiltonian dynamical systems. We apply a recently developed numerical algorithm to demonstrate that parts of the Majumdar-Papapetrou binary black hole shadow exhibit the Wada property: any point of the boundary of one basin is also on the boundary of at least two additional basins. We show that the algorithm successfully distinguishes between the fractal and regular (i.e., non-fractal) parts of the binary shadow.
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