Supermassive black hole binaries in gaseous and stellar circumnuclear discs: orbital dynamics and gas accretion

By M. Dotti, M. Colpi, F. Haardt, Lucio Mayer. 2006

203 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The dynamics of two massive black holes in a rotationally supported nuclear disc of mass M disc = 10 8 M⊙ is explored using N-body/smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. Gas and star particles are copresent in the disc. Described by a Mestel profile, the disc has a vertical support provided by turbulence of the gas, and by stellar velocity dispersion. A primary black hole of mass 4 x 10 6 M⊙ is placed at the centre of the disc, while a secondary black hole is set initially on an eccentric corotating orbit in the disc plane. Its mass is in a 1:1, 1:4, and 1:10 ratio, relative to the primary. With this choice, we mimic the dynamics of black hole pairs released in the nuclear region at the end of a gas-rich galaxy merger. It is found that, under the action of dynamical friction, the two black holes form a close binary in ∼10 Myr. The inspiral process is insensitive to the mass fraction in stars and gas present in the disc and is accompanied by the circularization of the orbit. We detail the gaseous mass profile bound to each black hole that can lead to the formation of two small Keplerian discs, weighing ≈2 per cent of the black hole mass, and of size ∼0.01 pc. The mass of the tightly (loosely) bound particles increases (decreases) with time as the black holes spiral into closer and closer orbits. Double active galactic nucleus activity is expected to occur on an estimated time-scale of ≤10 Myr, comparable to the inspiral time-scale. The double nuclear point-like sources that may appear during dynamical evolution will have typical separations of ≤10 pc.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9bcf060ca364adb05be0a16e69022901a0f5c9dd

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Citations in the corpus

Evolution of binary black holes in self gravitating discs. Dissecting the torques (2012, background): “…and gaseous environments have been shown to be effective in extracting the binary energy and angular momentum (see, e.g., Escala et al. 2005; Dotti et al. 2007; Cuadra et al. 2009; Khan et al. 2011; Preto et al. 2011), likely driving the system to final coalescence (an extensive discussion…”
Limiting eccentricity of subparsec massive black hole binaries surrounded by self-gravitating gas discs (2011, background): “…inside the massive gaseous nuclear disc resulting upon collision, the two BHs continue to lose orbital energy and angular momentum under the large-scale action of gas-dynamical friction, and end up forming a circular Keplerian binary, on parsec scales (Escala et al. 2005; Dotti et al. 2007, 2009).”
The evolution of massive black holes and their spins in their galactic hosts (2012, methodology): “…with hydrodynamical simulations (Springel & Hernquist 2003; Springel 2005; Di Matteo, Springel, & Hernquist 2005; Scannapieco et al. 2009; Dotti et al. 2007; Dotti, Colpi, & Haardt 2006; Dotti et al. 2009, 2010a; Maio et al. 2012; O’Shea et al. 2004; Kravtsov & Gnedin 2005; Tassis et…”
The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational-wave Background (2023, background): “Similarly, in gas-rich systems, circumbinary gas disks can also catalyze the binary evolution (Escala et al. 2005; Dotti et al. 2007; Haiman et al. 2009), but the efficiency of this process or whether the gas pushes the binary inward or outward is still unclear (Moody et al. 2019; Muñoz et al.…”
Doing Science with eLISA: Astrophysics and Cosmology in the Millihertz Regime (2012, background): “The subsequent hardening of the binary orbit (phase II) is controlled by the inflow of stars from larger radii, and by the gas rotating in a circum-binary disc (Callegari et al., 2009, Colpi and Dotti, 2011, Dotti et al., 2006, 2007, 2009b, Escala et al., 2004, Merritt and Milosavljević, 2005).”
Accretion into the central cavity of a circumbinary disc (2012, background): “…Preto et al. 2011), many studies have shown that gas in the vicinity of the binary could aid in hardening the binary down to parsec separations (e.g. Escala et al. 2005; Dotti et al. 2007; Mayer et al. 2007; Cuadra et al. 2009; Lodato et al. 2009; Nixon et al. 2011a; Chapon, Mayer & Teyssier 2013).”
A LARGE SYSTEMATIC SEARCH FOR CLOSE SUPERMASSIVE BINARY AND RAPIDLY RECOILING BLACK HOLES (2011, unknown): “…of the binary orbit have been explored in an effort to solve this problem, most notably drag by a large gaseous reservoir (e.g. a disk) or torques on a binary at short separations by a circumbinary disk(e.g. Escala et al. 2004; Dotti et al. 2007, 2009b; Cuadra et al. 2009; Lodato et al. 2009).”
Massive Black Hole Binary Mergers in Dynamical Galactic Environments (2016, result): “Similar SPH studies have affirmed and extended these results to more general environments and MBHB configurations (e.g. Dotti et al. 2007; Cuadra et al. 2009).”
The quest for dual and binary supermassive black holes: A multi-messenger view (2019, unknown): “10 pc (Mayer et al., 2007; Dotti et al., 2007; Khan et al., 2012a).”
Massive black hole binary mergers within subparsec scale gas discs (2008, unknown): “…likely to be important for SMBH binary mergers, provided that the mass of gas in the disc is roughly of the same order of magnitude as the mass in black holes (Gould & Rix, 2000; Armitage & Natarajan, 2002; Escala et al., 2005; Dotti et al., 2007; MacFadyen & Milosavljević, 2008; Hayasaki, 2008).”
THE EVOLUTION OF SWIFT/BAT BLAZARS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE MeV BACKGROUND (2009, background): “These events can produce a maximally rotating black hole by coalescence of the two black holes (Escala et al. 2004, 2005; Dotti et al. 2007) and by triggering large-gas accretion events that spin up the hole (Barnes & Hernquist 1996; Escala 2007; Bogdanović et al. 2007).”
EFFICIENT MERGER OF BINARY SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES IN MERGING GALAXIES (2011, background): “Of course, this mechanism can act in addition to torques from gas, if present, (e.g. Escala et al. 2005; Dotti et al. 2007; Cuadra et al. 2009), or to loss-cone repopulation due to “massive perturbers” (Perets & Alexander 2008), etc.”
THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION OF FERMI-DETECTED FLAT-SPECTRUM RADIO QUASARS (2011, background): “5 (Romani 2006), and it is plausible that major mergers, more frequently experienced in the early universe, might preferentially produce maximally rotating black holes (e.g., see Escala et al. 2004; Dotti et al. 2007).”