Related papers: Electromagnetic Emission from Supermassive Binary …
Gaseous circumbinary accretion discs provide a promising mechanism to facilitate the mergers of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei. We measure the torques exerted on accreting SMBH binaries, using 2D, isothermal,…
Galaxy mergers produce supermassive black hole binaries, which emit gravitational waves prior to their coalescence. We perform three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations to study the tidal disruption of stars by such a binary in the final…
The origins of X-ray and radio emissions during an X-ray binary outburst are comparatively better understood than those of ultraviolet, optical and infrared radiation. This is because multiple competing mechanisms peak in these mid-energy…
It has long been thought that black hole accretion flows are driven by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, and there are now many general relativistic global simulations illustrating the dynamics of this process. However, many challenges…
The environment surrounding supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei (GNs) is expected to harbour stellar-mass binary black hole (BBH) populations. These binaries were suggested to form a hierarchical triple system with the SMBH,…
We present the first magnetohydrodynamic simulation in which a circumbinary disk around a relativistic binary black hole feeds mass to individual accretion disks ("mini-disks") around each black hole. Mass flow through the accretion streams…
We demonstrate the formation of magnetically arrested minidisks (MAM) around equal-mass, nonspinning binary black holes with magnetohydrodynamic simulations of circumbinary disk accretion in full 3+1 general relativity. The initial…
We investigate the time-varying electromagnetic emission of a low-mass-ratio supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) embedded in a circumprimary disk, with a particular interest in variability of shocks driven by the binary. We perform a 2D,…
We review the state of the evidence for the existence and observational appearance of supermassive black hole binaries. Such objects are expected from standard hierarchical galaxy evolution to form after two galaxies, each containing a…
Recent breakthroughs in the field of numerical relativity have led to dramatic progress in understanding the predictions of General Relativity for the dynamical interactions of two black holes in the regime of very strong gravitational…
The production site of heavy r-process elements, such as Gold and Uranium, is uncertain. Neutron star mergers are the only astrophysical phenomenon in which we have witnessed their formation. However, the amount of heavy elements resulting…
With the observation of gravitational waves from merging compact binary systems, a new observing window of the universe has been opened. Most of the gravitational wave events currently detected are due to the merger of binary black hole…
During the final moments of a binary black hole (BH) merger, the gravitational wave (GW) luminosity of the system is greater than the combined electromagnetic output of the entire observable universe. However, the extremely weak coupling…
We present the results of a new series of global 3D relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of thin accretion disks around spinning black holes. The disks have aspect ratios of $H/R\sim 0.05$ and spin parameters $a/M=0, 0.5,…
The barycenter of a massive black hole binary will lie outside the event horizon of the primary black hole for modest values of mass ratio and binary separation. Analagous to radial velocity shifts in stellar emission lines caused by the…
Recent observations suggest that in black hole X-ray binaries jet/outflow formation is related to the hot plasma in the vicinity of the black hole, either in the form of an advection-dominated accretion flow at low accretion rates or in a…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a ubiquitous component of the nuclei of galaxies. It is normally assumed that, following the merger of two massive galaxies, a SMBH binary will form, shrink due to stellar or gas dynamical processes and…
We consider a scenario for the longest duration gamma ray bursts, resulting from the collapse of a massive star in a close binary system with a companion black hole. The primary black hole born during the core collapse is spun up and…
We consider a rapidly spinning black hole surrounded by an equatorial, geometrically thin, slowly accreting disk that is stationary and axisymmetric. We analytically compute the broadening of electromagnetic line emissions from the…
Recent hydrodynamical simulations have shown that circumbinary gas disks drive the orbits of binary black holes to become eccentric, even when general relativistic corrections to the orbit are significant. Here, we study the general…