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Related papers: Massive BH Binaries as Periodically-Variable AGN

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Black hole (BH) - neutron star (NS) binary mergers are not only strong sources of gravitational waves (GWs), but they are also candidates for joint detections in the GW and electromagnetic (EM) spectra. However, the possible emergence of an…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-09-12 Konrad Topolski , Samuel Tootle , Luciano Rezzolla

Stellar mass black holes (BHs) are expected to segregate and form a steep density cusp around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei. We follow the evolution of a multi-mass system of BHs and stars by numerically integrating…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Ryan M. O'Leary , Bence Kocsis , Abraham Loeb

Binary supermassive black hole (SMBH) systems result from galaxy mergers, and will eventually coalesce due to gravitational wave (GW) emission if the binary separation can be reduced to $\lesssim 0.1$ pc by other mechanisms. Here, we…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-03-17 Adam Ingram , Sara Motta , Suzanne Aigrain , Aris Karastergiou

The role of mergers in the evolution of massive black holes is still unclear, and their dynamical evolution, from the formation of pairs to binaries and the final coalescence, carries large physical uncertainties. The identification of the…

We present a new observational test to identify massive black hole binaries in large multi-epoch spectroscopical catalogues and to probe the real nature of already proposed binary candidates. The test is tailored for binaries with…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-01-10 Massimo Dotti , Fabio Rigamonti , Stefano Rinaldi , Walter Del Pozzo , Roberto Decarli , Riccardo Buscicchio

Galaxy observations suggest that mergers of supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are rare events, with rates of order one per decade across the observable Universe. We present a framework to search for merging SMBHBs in pulsar timing…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-17 Sharon Mary Tomson , Boris Goncharov , Rutger van Haasteren

The possible existence of primordial black holes (PBHs) is an open question in modern cosmology. Among the probes to test it, gravitational waves (GW) coming from their mergers constitute a powerful tool. In this work, we study how stellar…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2023-08-22 Sarah Libanore , Michele Liguori , Alvise Raccanelli

Next-generation ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors are expected to observe millions of binary black hole mergers, a fraction of which will be strongly lensed by intervening galaxies or clusters, producing multiple images with…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2026-01-16 Huan Zhou , Bin Liu , Zheng-Xiang Li , Xi-Jing Wang , Kai Liao

We use long-run, high-resolution hydrodynamics simulations to compute the multi-wavelength light curves (LCs) from thermal disk emission around accreting equal-mass supermassive black hole (BH) binaries, with a focus on revealing binary…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-11-14 John Ryan Westernacher-Schneider , Jonathan Zrake , Andrew MacFadyen , Zoltán Haiman

We investigate the detectability of single-event coalescing black hole binaries with total mass of $100-600 M_{\odot}$ at cosmological distances ($5 \lesssim z \lesssim 20$) with the next generation of terrestrial gravitational wave…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-10-30 Stephen Fairhurst , Cameron Mills , Monica Colpi , Raffaella Schneider , Alberto Sesana , Alessandro Trinca , Rosa Valiante

Massive black hole binaries are expected to be observable as periodic AGN in time-domain photometric surveys. Periodicities may originate from different physical processes, including the intermittent gas feeding of the black holes caused by…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-26 Lorenzo Bertassi , Maria Charisi , Riccardo Buscicchio , Fabio Rigamonti , Jessie Runnoe , Massimo Dotti

Binary black hole (BBH) evolution in the discs of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is a promising channel for gravitational wave (GW)-driven mergers. It is however unclear whether binaries interacting with the surrounding disc undergo orbital…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-12-04 W. Ishibashi , M. Gröbner

Many stellar-mass Black Holes (sBHs) are expected to orbit supermassive black holes at galactic centers. For galaxies with Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), it is likely that the sBHs reside in a disk. We study the formation of sBH binaries via…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-03-15 Barak Rom , Re'em Sari , Dong Lai

The LIGO/Virgo gravitational-wave (GW) interferometers have to-date detected ten merging black hole (BH) binaries, some with masses considerably larger than had been anticipated. Stellar-mass BH binaries at the high end of the observed mass…

While the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK) gravitational wave (GW) detectors have detected over 300 binary black hole (BBH) mergers to date, the first confirmation of an electromagnetic (EM) counterpart to such an event remains elusive. Previous…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-03-04 Tomás Cabrera , Antonella Palmese , Maya Fishbach

In the last few years before merger, supermassive black hole binaries will rapidly inspiral and precess in a magnetic field imposed by a surrounding circumbinary disk. Multiple simulations suggest this relative motion will convert some of…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-30 R. O'Shaughnessy , D. L. Kaplan , A. Sesana , A. Kamble

It was recently suggested that the merger of $\sim30\,M_\odot$ primordial black holes (PBHs) may provide a significant number of events in gravitational-wave observatories over the next decade, if they make up an appreciable fraction of the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-10-12 Ilias Cholis , Ely D. Kovetz , Yacine Ali-Haïmoud , Simeon Bird , Marc Kamionkowski , Julian B. Muñoz , Alvise Raccanelli

We compute the expected low-frequency gravitational wave signal from coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries at the center of galaxies. We follow the merging history of halos and associated holes via cosmological Monte Carlo…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 A. Sesana , F. Haardt , P. Madau , M. Volonteri

Stellar mass, binary black hole (BBH) mergers dominates the sources of gravitational wave (GW) events so far detected by the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK) experiment. The origin of these BBHs is unknown, and no electromagnetic (EM) counterpart has…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-03-28 Juan C. Rodríguez-Ramírez , Rodrigo Nemmen , Clécio R. Bom

Primordial black holes (PBHs) may form from the collapse of matter overdensities shortly after the Big Bang. One may identify their existence by observing gravitational wave (GW) emissions from merging PBH binaries at high redshifts…