When two galaxies merge, they often produce a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) at their center. Numerical simulations with stars and cold dark matter show that SMBHBs typically stall out at a distance of a few parsecs apart and take billions of years to coalesce. This is known as the final parsec problem. We suggest that ultralight dark matter (ULDM) halos around SMBHBs can generate dark matter waves due to dynamical friction. These waves can effectively carry away orbital energy from the black holes, rapidly driving them together. To test this hypothesis, we performed numerical simulations of black hole binaries inside ULDM halos.
Due to gravitational cooling and quasi-normal modes, the loss-cone problem can be avoided. The decay time scale gives lower bounds on masses of the ULDM particles and SMBHBs comparable to observational data. Our results imply that ULDM waves can lead to the rapid orbital decay of black hole binaries.
In the context of structure formation with ultralight axion dark matter, we offer an alternative explanation for the mass relation of solitonic cores and their host halos observed in numerical simulations. Our argument is based entirely on the mass gain that occurs during major mergers of binary cores and largely independent of the initial core-halo mass relation assigned to hosts that have just collapsed. We find a relation between the halo mass $M_h$ and corresponding core mass $M_c$, $M_c\propto M_h^{2β-1}$, where $(1-β)$ is the core mass loss fraction. Following the evolution of core masse…
We present a hydrodynamical simulation of an Antennae-like galaxy merger at parsec resolution, including a multi-component model for stellar feedback and reaching numerical convergence in the global star formation rate for the first time. We analyse the properties of the dense stellar objects formed during the different stages of the interaction. Each galactic encounter triggers a starburst activity, but the varying physical conditions change the triggering mechanism of each starburst. During the first two pericenter passages, the starburst is spatially extended and forms many star clusters. H…
Massive black hole binaries (BHBs) are expected to be one of the most powerful sources of gravitational waves (GWs) in the frequency range of the pulsar timing array and of forthcoming space-borne detectors. They are believed to form in the final stages of galaxy mergers, and then harden by slingshot ejections of passing stars. However, evolution via the slingshot mechanism may be ineffective if the reservoir of interacting stars is not readily replenished, and the binary shrinking may come to a halt at roughly a parsec separation. Recent simulations suggest that the departure from spherical s…
In this work we study some features of head-on mergers of equilibrium solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii-Poisson system that rules the dynamics of the ultralight bosonic dark matter model. The importance of equilibrium solutions is that they play the role of halo cores in structure formation simulations. We consider a given range of initial conditions in order to sample the parameter space in terms of mass ratio and head-on momentum. In each case we analyze the relaxation process induced by gravitational cooling in the high and low momentum regimes and estimate the relaxation time scales in eac…
Effect of ultralight dark matter on compact binary mergers
Chennai Mathematical Institute（金奈数学研究所）；CEICO, Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences（捷克科学院物理研究所 CEICO）；Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar（印度技术学院甘地纳加尔分校）；School of Physical Sciences, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science（印度科学培养协会物理科学学院）
Using few-body simulations, we investigate the evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galaxies ($M_{\star}=10^{10}-10^{12}{\rm M}_{\odot}$ at $z=0$) at $0<z<4$. Following galaxy merger trees from the Millennium simulation, we model BH mergers with two extreme binary decay scenarios for the `hard binary' stage: a full or an empty loss cone. These two models should bracket the true evolution, and allow us to separately explore the role of dynamical friction and that of multi-body BH interactions on BH mergers. Using the computed merger rates, we infer the stochastic gravitational wave …
We study the formation of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary and the shrinking of the separation of the two holes to sub-pc scales starting from a realistic major merger between two gas-rich spiral galaxies with mass comparable to our Milky Way. The simulations, carried out with the Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) code RAMSES, are capable of resolving separations as small as 0.1 pc. The collision of the two galaxies produces a gravo-turbulent rotating nuclear disk with mass (10^9 Msun) and size (60 pc) in excellent agreement with previous SPH simulations with particle splitting that used a…
Coalescing massive black hole binaries, formed during galaxy mergers, are expected to be a primary source of low frequency gravitational waves. Yet in isolated gas-free spherical stellar systems, the hardening of the binary stalls at parsec-scale separations owing to the inefficiency of relaxation-driven loss-cone refilling. Repopulation via collisionless orbit diffusion in triaxial systems is more efficient, but published simulation results are contradictory. While sustained hardening has been reported in simulations of galaxy mergers with $N \sim 10^6$ stars and in early simulations of rotat…
We simulate an equal-mass merger of two Milky Way-size galaxy discs with moderate gas fractions at parsec-scale resolution including a new model for radiative cooling and heating in a multi-phase medium, as well as star formation and feedback from supernovae. The two discs initially have a $2.6\times10^6\mathrm{~M_{\odot}}$ supermassive black hole (SMBH) embedded in their centers. As the merger completes and the two galactic cores merge, the SMBHs form a a pair with a separation of a few hundred pc that gradually decays. Due to the stochastic nature of the system immediately following the merg…
Stone Skipping Black Holes in Ultralight Dark Matter Solitons
Australian National University（澳大利亚国立大学）；Georg-August-Universität Göttingen（哥廷根大学）；Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics（理论物理珀米特研究所）；McGill University（麦吉尔大学）；University of Auckland（奥克兰大学）
Within the context of ultralight BEC dark matter, we analyze the head-on encounters of two structures. These structures are made of a BEC component, which is a ground state equilibrium solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii-Poisson system, together with a component of luminous matter. The evolution of the Condensate dark matter is carried out by solving the time dependent GPP equations, whereas the luminous matter is modeled with particles interacting gravitationally on top of the BEC dark matter halos. We track the evolution of frontal encounters for various values of the collision velocity and ana…
During a galaxy merger, the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in each galaxy is thought to sink to the center of the potential and form a supermassive black hole binary; this binary can eject stars via 3-body scattering, bringing the SMBHs ever closer. In a static spherical galaxy model, the binary stalls at a separation of about a parsec after ejecting all the stars in its loss cone -- this is the well-known final parsec problem. Earlier work has shown that the centrophilic orbits in triaxial galaxy models are key in refilling the loss cone at a high enough rate to prevent the black holes from s…
We consider the interaction between a binary system (e.g. two supermassive black holes or two stars) and an external accretion disc with misaligned angular momentum. This situation occurs in galaxy merger events involving supermassive black holes, and in the formation of stellar--mass binaries in star clusters. We work out the gravitational torque between the binary and disc, and show that their angular momenta J_b, J_d stably counteralign if their initial orientation is sufficiently retrograde, specifically if the angle theta between them obeys cos(theta) < -J_d/2J_b, on a time short compared…
We present KETJU, a new extension of the widely-used smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulation code GADGET-3. The key feature of the code is the inclusion of algorithmically regularized regions around every supermassive black hole (SMBH). This allows for simultaneously following global galactic-scale dynamical and astrophysical processes, while solving the dynamics of SMBHs, SMBH binaries and surrounding stellar systems at sub-parsec scales. The KETJU code includes Post-Newtonian terms in the equations of motions of the SMBHs which enables a new SMBH merger criterion based on the gravitationa…
A binary supermassive black hole loses energy via ejection of stars in a galactic nucleus, until emission of gravitational waves becomes strong enough to induce rapid coalescence. Evolution via the gravitational slingshot requires that stars be continuously supplied to the binary, and it is known that in spherical galaxies the reservoir of such stars is quickly depleted, leading to stalling of the binary at parsec-scale separations. Recent N-body simulations of galaxy mergers and isolated nonspherical galaxies suggest that this stalling may not occur in less idealized systems. However, it rema…
The capture and disruption of stars by supermassive black holes (SMBHs), and the formation and coalescence of binaries, are inevitable consequences of the presence of SMBHs at the cores of galaxies. Pairs of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and binary SMBHs are important stages in the evolution of galaxy mergers, and an intense search for these systems is currently ongoing. In the early and advanced stages of galaxy merging, observations of the triggering of accretion onto one or both BHs inform us about feedback processes and BH growth. Identification of the compact binary SMBHs at parsec and sub…
The formation of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) is an unavoidable outcome of galaxy evolution via successive mergers. However, the mechanism that drives their orbital evolution from parsec separations down to the gravitational wave (GW) dominated regime is poorly understood, and their final fate is still unclear. If such binaries are embedded in gas-rich and turbulent environments, as observed in remnants of galaxy mergers, the interaction with gas clumps (such as molecular clouds) may efficiently drive their orbital evolution. Using numerical simulations, we test this hypothesis by study…
At low redshift, massive black holes are found in the centers of almost all large elliptical galaxies, and also in many lower-mass systems. Their evolution is believed to be inextricably entangled with that of their host galaxies. On the one hand, the galactic environment provides gas for the black holes to grow via accretion and shine as active galactic nuclei. On the other hand, massive black holes are expected to backreact on the galactic dynamics, by injecting energy in their surroundings via jets or radiative feedback. Moreover, if galaxies and dark-matter halos form hierarchically, from …
As a natural consequence of cosmological hierarchical structure formation, sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) should be common in galaxies but thus far have eluded spectroscopic identification. Based on four decades of optical spectroscopic monitoring, we report that the nucleus of NGC 5548, a nearby Seyfert galaxy long suspected to have experienced a major merger about one billion years ago, exhibits long-term variability with a period of 14 years in the optical continuum and broad Hbeta emission line. Remarkably, the double-peaked profile of Hbeta shows systematic velocity …
Mergers of gas-rich galaxies are key events in the hierarchical built-up of cosmic structures, and can lead to the formation of massive black hole binaries. By means of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations we consider the late stages of a gas-rich major merger, detailing the dynamics of two circumnuclear discs, and of the hosted massive black holes during their pairing phase. During the merger gas clumps with masses of a fraction of the black hole mass form because of fragmentation. Such high-density gas is very effective in forming stars, and the most massive clumps can substantially pe…
Mergers of galaxies are thought to cause significant gas inflows to the inner parsecs, which can activate rapid accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs), giving rise to Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). During a significant fraction of this process, SMBHs are predicted to be enshrouded by gas and dust. Studying 52 galactic nuclei in infrared-selected local Luminous and Ultra-luminous infrared galaxies in different merger stages in the hard X-ray band, where radiation is less affected by absorption, we find that the amount of material around SMBHs increases during the last phases of the merg…
Gravitational waves emitted by merging black holes between $\sim 10^4-10^7~M_\odot$ will be detectable by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) with signal-to-noise ratios of several hundred out to redshift 20. Supermassive black hole ($10^7$~M$_{\odot}$ - $10^{10}$~M$_{\odot}$) binary formation, coalescence and merger within massive galaxies is well-studied. However, low-to-intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) are hosted by low-mass and dwarf galaxies; it is not trivial to extrapolate black hole merger timescales to this IMBH binary regime, due to the starkly different host galaxy st…
Using parsec scale resolution hydrodynamical adaptive mesh refinement simulations we have studied the mass transport process throughout a galactic merger. The aim of such study is to connect both the peaks of mass accretion rate onto the BHs and star formation bursts with both gravitational and hydrodynamic torques acting on the galactic gaseous component. Our merger initial conditions were chosen to mimic a realistic system. The simulations include gas cooling, star formation, supernovae feedback, and AGN feedback. Gravitational and hydrodynamic torques near pericenter passes trigger gas funn…
We investigate the evolution of low mass (Md /Mb = 0.005) misaligned gaseous discs around eccentric supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. These are expected to form from randomly oriented accretion events onto a SMBH binary formed in a galaxy merger. When expanding the interaction terms between the binary and a circular ring to quadrupole order and averaging over the binary orbit, we expect four non-precessing disc orientations: aligned or counter-aligned with the binary, or polar orbits around the binary eccentricity vector with either sense of rotation. All other orientations precess arou…
We investigate a purely stellar dynamical solution to the Final Parsec Problem. Galactic nuclei resulting from major mergers are not spherical, but show some degree of triaxiality. With $N$-body simulations, we show that massive black hole binaries (MBHB) hosted by them will continuously interact with stars on centrophilic orbits and will thus inspiral---in much less than a Hubble time---down to separations at which gravitational wave (GW) emission is strong enough to drive them to coalescence. Such coalescences will be important sources of GWs for future space-borne detectors such as the {\it…
The dynamical evolution of supermassive black-hole binary systems is tethered on large scales to the merger rate of massive galaxies, and on small scales to the stellar and gaseous environments of galactic cores. The population of these systems will create an ensemble gravitational-wave signal at nanohertz frequencies that is detectable by Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTA), such as the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). By measuring nanohertz gravitational waves, we will be able to definitively demonstrate that supermassive black-hole binaries reach milliparsec s…
Effects of dark dipole radiation on eccentric supermassive black hole binary inspirals
School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)（中国科学院大学天文与空间科学学院）；School of Physics, Nanjing University（南京大学物理学院）
Supermassive binary black holes (BBHs) are unavoidable products of galaxy mergers and are expected to exist in the cores of many quasars. Great effort has been made during the past several decades to search for BBHs among quasars; however, observational evidence for BBHs remains elusive and ambiguous, which is difficult to reconcile with theoretical expectations. In this paper, we show that the distinct optical-to-UV spectrum of Mrk 231 can be well interpreted as emission from accretion flows onto a BBH, with a semimajor axis of ~590AU and an orbital period of ~1.2 year. The flat optical and U…
We introduce a tool that solves the Schrödinger-Euler-Poisson system of equations and allows the study of the interaction between ultralight bosonic dark matter, whose dynamics is described with the Schrödinger-Poisson system and luminous matter which, as a first approximation, is modeled with a single component compressible ideal fluid. The two matter fields are coupled through the Poisson equation, whose source is the addition of both, dark matter and fluid densities. We describe the numerical methods used to solve the system of equations and present tests for each of the two components, tha…
We perform numerical simulations on the merger of multiple black holes (BHs) in primordial gas at early cosmic epochs. We consider two cases of BH mass: $M_{BH} = 30 M_{\odot}$ and $M_{BH} = 10^4 M_{\odot}$. Attention is concentrated on the effect of the dynamical friction by gas in a host object. The simulations incorporate such general relativistic effects as the pericentre shift and gravitational wave emission. As a result, we find that multiple BHs are able to merge into one BH within 100 Myr in a wide range of BH density. The merger mechanism is revealed to be categorized into three types…
Nuclear star clusters that surround supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei are among the densest systems in the Universe, harbouring millions of stars and compact objects (COs). Within a few parsecs from the SMBH, stars can form binaries. In this paper, we model the supernova (SN) process of massive binaries that are born in proximity of the SMBH and that produce CO binaries. These binaries can later merge via emission of gravitational waves as a consequence of the Lidov-Kozai mechanism. We study the dynamical evolution of these systems by means of high-precision $N$-body simulati…
We present here a self-consistent cosmological zoom-in simulation of a triple supermassive black hole (SMBH) system forming in a complex multiple galaxy merger. The simulation is run with an updated version of our code KETJU, which is able to follow the motion of SMBHs down to separations of tens of Schwarzschild radii while simultaneously modeling the large-scale astrophysical processes in the surrounding galaxies, such as gas cooling, star formation, and stellar and AGN feedback. Our simulation produces initially a SMBH binary system for which the hardening process is interrupted by the late…
Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) in the 10 million to 10 billion $M_\odot$ range form in galaxy mergers, and live in galactic nuclei with large and poorly constrained concentrations of gas and stars. There are currently no observations of merging SMBHBs--- it is in fact possible that they stall at their final parsec of separation and never merge. While LIGO has detected high frequency GWs, SMBHBs emit GWs in the nanohertz to millihertz band. This is inaccessible to ground-based interferometers, but possible with Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs). Using data from local galaxies in the 2 Micr…
Detection of a parsec-scale, compact, and fading ejecta from an accreting massive black hole
Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, CAS（中国科学院新疆天文台）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Chalmers University of Technology（查尔姆斯理工大学）；Onsala Space Observatory（翁萨拉太空观测站）；Peking University（北京大学）
Elusive supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are thought to be the penultimate stage of galaxy mergers, preceding a final coalescence phase. SMBHBs are sources of continuous gravitational waves, possibly detectable by pulsar timing arrays; the identification of candidates could help in performing targeted gravitational wave searches. Due to their origin in the innermost parts of active galactic nuclei (AGN), X-rays are a promising tool to unveil the presence of SMBHBs, by means of either double Fe K$α$ emission lines or periodicity in their light curve. Here we report on a new method to s…
The supermassive black holes originally in the nuclei of two merging galaxies will form a binary in the remnant core. The early evolution of the massive binary is driven by dynamical friction before the binary becomes "hard" and eventually reaches coalescence through gravitational wave emission. { We consider the dynamical friction evolution of massive binaries consisting of a secondary hole orbiting inside a stellar cusp dominated by a more massive central black hole.} In our treatment we include the frictional force from stars moving faster than the inspiralling object which is neglected in …
Frequency and Abundance of Binary sUpermassive bLack holes from Optical Variability Surveys (FABULOVS): Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of Radial-Velocity Selected Binary Candidates
During a galaxy merger, the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in each galaxy is thought to sink to the center of the potential and form a supermassive black hole binary; this binary can eject stars via 3-body scattering, bringing the SMBHs ever closer. In a static spherical galaxy model, the binary stalls at a separation of about a parsec after ejecting all the stars in its loss cone -- this is the well-known final parsec problem. However it has been shown that SMBH binaries in non-spherical galactic nuclei harden at a nearly constant rate until reaching the gravitational wave regime. Here we use…
Motivated by the recent detection of gravitational waves from the black hole binary merger GW150914, we study the dynamical evolution of black holes in galactic nuclei where massive star clusters reside. With masses of ~10^7M_Sun and sizes of only a few parsecs, nuclear star clusters are the densest stellar systems observed in the local universe and represent a robust environment where (stellar mass) black hole binaries can dynamically form, harden and merge. We show that due to their large escape speeds, nuclear star clusters can keep a large fraction of their merger remnants while also evolv…
Many galaxies are expected to harbor binary supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in their centers. Their interaction with the surrounding gas results in accretion and exchange of angular momentum via tidal torques, facilitating binary inspiral. Here we explore the non-trivial coupling between these two processes and analyze how the global properties of externally supplied circumbinary disks depend on the binary accretion rate. By formulating our results in terms of the angular momentum flux driven by internal stresses, we come up with a very simple classification of the possible global disk struct…
Massive black hole binaries (BHBs) are expected to form as the result of galaxy mergers; they shrink via dynamical friction and stellar scatterings, until gravitational waves (GWs) bring them to the final coalescence. It has been argued that BHBs may stall at a parsec scale and never enter the GW stage if stars are not continuously supplied to the BHB loss cone. Here we perform several N-body experiments to study the effect of an 80,000 solar masses stellar cluster (SC) infalling on a parsec-scale BHB. We explore different orbital elements for the SC and we perform runs both with and without a…
A recoiling supermassive black hole in a powerful quasar
Space Telescope Science Institute for the European Space Agency (ESA), ESA Office（欧洲空间局（ESA）太空望远镜科学研究所，ESA办公室）；The William H. Miller III Department of Physics & Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学威廉·H·米勒三世物理与天文学系）；IPAC, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院 IPAC）；Dipartimento di Fisica "G. Occhialini'', Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学 G. Occhialini 物理系）；INFN, Sezione di Milano-Bicocca（意大利国家核物理研究所米兰比可卡分部）；Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università degli Studi Roma Tre（罗马第三大学数学与物理系）；INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino（意大利国家天体物理研究所都灵天文台）；INAF-Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna（意大利国家天体物理研究所博洛尼亚天体物理与空间科学观测站）；Institute of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo（东京大学大学院理学研究科天文学系）；Astronomy Data Center, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台天文数据中心）；NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center（美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩分校物理系）；Advanced Technology Center, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台先进技术中心）；Space Telescope Science Institute（太空望远镜科学研究所）；Dept. of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学学院公园分校天文学系）
Rapid sinking and efficient mergers of supermassive black holes in compact high-redshift galaxies
University of Helsinki（赫尔辛基大学）；University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）；Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik（马克斯·普朗克天体物理学研究所）；National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家天文台）
Although supermassive black holes (SMBHs) correlate well with their host galaxies, there is an emerging view that outliers exist. Henize 2-10, NGC 4889, and NGC1277 are examples of SMBHs at least an order of magnitude more massive than their host galaxy suggests. The dynamical effects of such ultramassive central black holes is unclear. Here, we perform direct N-body simulations of mergers of galactic nuclei where one black hole is ultramassive to study the evolution of the remnant and the black hole dynamics in this extreme regime. We find that the merger remnant is axisymmetric near the cent…
Understanding the interaction of massive black hole binaries with their gaseous environment is crucial since at sub-parsec scales the binary is too wide for gravitational wave emission to take over and to drive the two black holes to merge. We here investigate the interaction between a massive black hole binary and a self-gravitating circumbinary disc using 3D smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We find that, when the disc self-gravity regulates the angular momentum transport, the binary semi-major axis decreases regardless the choice of disc masses and temperatures, within the range …
We present novel 3D multi-scale SPH simulations of gas-rich galaxy mergers between the most massive galaxies at $z \sim 8 - 10$, designed to scrutinize the direct collapse formation scenario for massive black hole seeds proposed in \citet{mayer+10}. The simulations achieve a resolution of 0.1 pc, and include both metallicity-dependent optically-thin cooling and a model for thermal balance at high optical depth. We consider different formulations of the SPH hydrodynamical equations, including thermal and metal diffusion. When the two merging galaxy cores collide, gas infall produces a compact, …
The merger of two galaxies, each hosting a supermassive black hole (SMBH) of mass $10^6$\,M$_{\odot}$ or more, could yield a bound SMBH binary. For the early-type galaxy NGC\,4472, we study how astrometry with a next-generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) could be used to monitor the reflex motion of the primary SMBH of mass $M_{\rm pri}$, as it is tugged on by the secondary SMBH of mass $M_{\rm sec}$. Casting the orbit of the putative SMBH binary in terms of its period $P$, semimajor axis $a_{\rm bin}$, and mass ratio $q = M_{\rm sec} / M_{\rm pri} \le 1$, we find the following: (1) Orbits with …
In this work, we study the stellar-dynamical hardening of unequal mass supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries in the central regions of merging galactic nuclei. We present a comprehensive set of direct $N$-body simulations of the problem, varying both the total mass and the mass ratio of the SMBH binary (SMBHB). Simulations were carried out with the $φ-$GPU $N$-body code, which enabled us to fully exploit supercomputers equipped with graphic processing units (GPUs). As a model for the galactic nuclei, we adopted initial axisymmetric, rotating models, aimed at reproducing the properties of a g…
