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Related papers: Recoiling black holes: prospects for detection and…

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The presence of dual active galactic nuclei (AGN) on scales of a few tens of kpc can be used to study merger-induced accretion on supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and offer insights about SMBH mergers, using dual AGNs as merger precursors.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-09-25 Vida Saeedzadeh , Arif Babul , Suvodip Mukherjee , Michael Tremmel , Thomas R. Quinn , Lucio Mayer

The detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes with masses $\sim\,80-150\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ suggests that some proportion of black hole binary systems form hierarchically in dense astrophysical environments, as most stellar…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-08 Jordan Moncrieff , Fiona Panther

The dense and gaseous environments of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can catalyze repeated mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs), potentially explaining the high-mass tail of binary black hole (BBH) mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-08-22 Maria Paola Vaccaro

The active galactic nucleus (AGN) accretion disks are ideal sites for hierarchical black hole (BH) mergers. To robustly probe such a possibility, we analyze binary black hole mergers in the GWTC-4 with a flexible mixture population model…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-09-30 Yin-Jie Li , Yuan-Zhu Wang , Shao-Peng Tang , Yi-Zhong Fan

Accretion discs around super-massive black holes (SMBH) not only power active galactic nuclei (AGNs), but also host single and binary embedded stellar-mass black holes (EBHs) that grow rapidly from gas accretion. The merger of these EBHs…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-04-12 Yi-Xian Chen , Douglas N. C. Lin

Context. Radio-loud AGNs with powerful relativistic jets are thought to be associated with rapidly spinning black holes (BHs). BH spin-up may result from a number of processes, including accretion of matter onto the BH itself, and…

Recent observations have identified an abundance of high-redshift active galactic nuclei (AGN) with supermassive black holes (BHs) that are over-massive compared to the local BH mass$-$total stellar mass ($M_{\mathrm{BH}}-M_\star$)…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-04-02 Jonathan H. Cohn , Emmanuel Durodola , Quinn O. Casey , Erini Lambrides , Ryan C. Hickox

Despite the increasing number of Gravitational Wave (GW) detections, the astrophysical origin of Binary Black Hole (BBH) mergers remains elusive. A promising formation channel for BBHs is inside accretion discs around supermassive black…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-10-25 Niccolò Veronesi , Elena Maria Rossi , Sjoert van Velzen

The dense and dynamic environments within active galactic nuclei (AGN) accretion disks may serve as prolific birthplaces for binary black holes (BBHs) and one possible origin for some of the BBHs detected by gravitational-wave (GW)…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-10-31 Samson H. W. Leong , Justin Janquart , Aditya Kumar Sharma , Paul Martens , Parameswaran Ajith , Otto A. Hannuksela

Measuring the spins of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) can inform us about the relative role of gas accretion vs. mergers in recent epochs of the life of the host galaxy and its AGN. Recent advances in…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2013-09-26 Laura Brenneman

When two black holes merge, the asymmetric emission of gravitational waves provides an impulse to the merged system; this gravitational wave recoil velocity can be up to 4000 km s$^{-1}$, easily fast enough for the black hole to escape its…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-06-24 Glenna Dunn , Kelly Holley-Bockelmann , Jillian Bellovary

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have been detected in the centers of most nearby massive galaxies. Galaxies today are the products of billions of years of galaxy mergers, but also billions of years of SMBH activity as active galactic…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2012-03-05 Sandor Van Wassenhove , Marta Volonteri , Lucio Mayer , Massimo Dotti , Jillian Bellovary , Simone Callegari

A supermassive black hole has been found at the centre of nearly every galaxy observed with sufficient sensitivity. The masses of these black holes are observed to increase with either the total mass or the mean (random) velocity of the…

Black hole mergers detectable with LIGO can occur in active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks. Here we parameterize the merger rates, the mass spectrum and the spin spectrum of black holes (BH) in AGN disks. The predicted merger rate spans $\sim…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-10-23 B. McKernan , K. E. S. Ford , J. Bellovary , N. W. C. Leigh , Z. Haiman , B. Kocsis , W. Lyra , M. -M. MacLow , B. Metzger , M. O'Dowd , S. Endlich , D. J. Rosen

Merging compact black-hole (BH) binaries are likely to exist in the nuclear star clusters around supermassive BHs (SMBHs), such as Sgr A$^\ast$. They may also form in the accretion disks of active galactic nuclei. Such compact binaries can…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-01-26 Bin Liu , Dong Lai

Several active galactic nuclei (AGN) with multiple sets of emission lines separated by over 2000 km/s have been observed recently. These have been interpreted as being due to massive black hole (MBH) recoil following a black hole merger,…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-14 M. Dotti , M. Ruszkowski

Merging of stellar-mass binary black holes (BBH) could take place within the accretion disk of active galactic nuclei (AGN). The resulting BH remnant is likely to accrete the disk gas at a super-Eddington rate, launching a fast,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-03-15 Zhi-Peng Ma , Kai Wang

The masses, rates, and spins of merging stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) detected by aLIGO and Virgo provide challenges to traditional BBH formation and merger scenarios. An active galactic nucleus (AGN) disk provides a promising…

The origin of stellar-mass black hole mergers discovered through gravitational waves is being widely debated. Mergers in the disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) represent a promising source of origin, with possible observational clues in…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-06-14 Hiromichi Tagawa , Shigeo S. Kimura , Zoltán Haiman , Rosalba Perna , Imre Bartos

Recoiling remnants of black-hole mergers in dense environments can produce bright electromagnetic (EM) counterparts to the gravitational-wave (GW) emission. Significance assessments of such GW-EM candidates are restricted to time and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-12-10 Samson H. W. Leong , Juan Calderón Bustillo