Binary Mergers near a Supermassive Black Hole: Relativistic Effects in Triples
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
2019-09-25 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
We study the general relativitic (GR) effects induced by a spinning supermassive black hole on the orbital and spin evolution of a merging black hole binary (BHB) in a hierarchical triple system. A sufficiently inclined outer orbit can excite Lidov-Kozai eccentricity oscillations in the BHB and induce its merger. These GR effects generate extra precessions on the BHB orbits and spins, significantly increasing the inclination window for mergers and producing a wide range of spin orientations when the BHB enters LIGO band. This "GR-enhanced" channel may play an important role in BHB mergers.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1906.07726,
title = {Binary Mergers near a Supermassive Black Hole: Relativistic Effects in Triples},
author = {Bin Liu and Dong Lai and Yi-Han Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.07726},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJL