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Register a new userSupermassive binary black hole mergers
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L\\'aszl\\'o \\'A Gergely
Publication date
2008
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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When galaxies collide, dynamical friction drives their central supermassive black holes close enought to each other such that gravitational radiation becomes the leading dissipative effect. Gravitational radiation takes away energy, momentum and angular momentum from the compact binary, such that the black holes finally merge. In the process, the spin of the dominant black hole is reoriented. On observational level, the spins are directly related to the jets, which can be seen at radio frequencies. Images of the X-shaped radio galaxies together with evidence on the age of the jets illustrate that the jets are reoriented, a phenomenon known as spin-flip. Based on the galaxy luminosity statistics we argue here that the typical galaxy encounters involve mass ratios between 1:3 to 1:30 for the central black holes. Based on the spin-orbit precession and gravitational radiation we also argue that for this typical mass ratio in the inspiral phase of the merger the initially dominant orbital angular momentum will become smaller than the spin, which will be reoriented. We prove here that the spin-flip phenomenon typically occurs already in the inspiral phase, and as such is describable by post-Newtonian techniques.
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Massive merging black holes will be the primary sources of powerful gravitational waves at low frequency, and will permit to test general relativity with candidate galaxies close to a binary black hole merger. In this paper we identify the typical mass ratio of the two black holes but then show that the distance when gravitational radiation becomes the dominant dissipative effect (over dynamical friction) does not depend on the mass ratio. However the dynamical evolution in the gravitational wave emission regime does. For the typical range of mass ratios the final stage of the merger is preceded by a rapid precession and a subsequent spin-flip of the main black hole. This already occurs in the inspiral phase, therefore can be described analytically by post-Newtonian techniques. We then identify the radio galaxies with a super-disk as those in which the rapidly precessing jet produces effectively a powerful wind, entraining the environmental gas to produce the appearance of a thick disk. These specific galaxies are thus candidates for a merger of two black holes to happen in the astronomically near future.
One of the central goals of LISA is the detection of gravitational waves from the merger of supermassive black holes. Contrary to stellar-mass black hole mergers, such events are expected to be rich X-ray sources due to the accretion of material from the circumbinary disks onto the black holes. The orbital dynamics before merger is also expected to modulate the resulting X-ray emission via Doppler boosting in a quasi-periodic way, and in a simple phase relation with the gravitational wave from the inspiral of the black holes. Detecting the X-ray source would enable a precise and early localization of the binary, thus allowing many telescopes to observe the very moment of the merger. Although identifying the correct X-ray source in the relatively large LISA sky localization will be challenging due to the presence of many confounding point sources, the quasi-periodic modulation may aid in the identification. We explore the practical feasibility of such idea. We simulate populations of merging supermassive black holes, their detection with LISA and their X-ray lightcurves using a simple model. Taking the parameters of the X-ray Telescope on the proposed NASA Transient Astrophysics Probe, we then design and simulate an observation campaign that searches for the modulated X-ray source while LISA is still observing the inspiral of the black holes. Assuming a fiducial LISA detection rate of $10$ mergers per year at redshift closer than $3.5$, we expect a few detections of modulated X-ray counterparts over the nominal duration of the LISA mission.
Some astrophysical sources of gravitational waves can produce a memory effect, which causes a permanent displacement of the test masses in a freely falling gravitational-wave detector. The Christodoulou memory is a particularly interesting nonlinear form of memory that arises from the gravitational-wave stress-energy tensors contribution to the distant gravitational-wave field. This nonlinear memory contributes a nonoscillatory component to the gravitational-wave signal at leading (Newtonian-quadrupole) order in the waveform amplitude. Previous computations of the memory and its detectability considered only the inspiral phase of binary black hole coalescence. Using an effective-one-body (EOB) approach calibrated to numerical relativity simulations, as well as a simple fully analytic model, the Christodoulou memory is computed for the inspiral, merger, and ringdown. The memory will be very difficult to detect with ground-based interferometers, but is likely to be observable in supermassive black hole mergers with LISA out to a redshift of two. Detection of the nonlinear memory could serve as an experimental test of the ability of gravity to gravitate.
Stellar-mass black hole binaries (BHBs) near supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galactic nuclei undergo eccentricity oscillations due to gravitational perturbations from the SMBH. Previous works have shown that this channel can contribute to the overall BHB merger rate detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo Interferometer. Significantly, the SMBH gravitational perturbations on the binarys orbit may produce eccentric BHBs which are expected to be visible using the upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) for a large fraction of their lifetime before they merge in the LIGO/Virgo band. For a proof-of-concept, we show that the eccentricity oscillations of these binaries can be detected with LISA for BHBs in the local universe up to a few Mpcs, with observation periods shorter than the mission lifetime, thereby disentangling this merger channel from others. The approach presented here is straightforward to apply to a wide variety of compact object binaries with a tertiary companion.
We present results from a controlled numerical experiment investigating the effect of stellar density gas on the coalescence of binary black holes (BBHs) and the resulting gravitational waves (GWs). This investigation is motivated by the proposed stellar core fragmentation scenario for BBH formation and the associated possibility of an electromagnetic counterpart to a BBH GW event. We employ full numerical relativity coupled with general-relativistic hydrodynamics and set up a $30 + 30 M_odot$ BBH (motivated by GW150914) inside gas with realistic stellar densities. Our results show that at densities $rho gtrsim 10^6 - 10^7 , mathrm{g , cm}^{-3}$ dynamical friction between the BHs and gas changes the coalescence dynamics and the GW signal in an unmistakable way. We show that for GW150914, LIGO observations conclusively rule out BBH coalescence inside stellar gas of $rho gtrsim 10^7 , mathrm{g,cm}^{-3}$. Typical densities in the collapsing cores of massive stars are in excess of this density. This excludes the fragmentation scenario for the formation of GW150914.
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