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The discovery of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in magnetar giant flares has opened up prospects for neutron star asteroseismology. However, with only three giant flares ever recorded, and only two with data of sufficient quality to…

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will catalogue the light-curves of up to 100 million quasars. Among these there can be up to approximately 100 ultra-compact massive black hole (MBH) binaries, which…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-03-28 Chengcheng Xin , Zoltan Haiman

Haystack and Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) observations recently revealed strong, intermittent, sinusoidal total flux-density variations that maintained coherence between 1975 and 2021 in the blazar PKS 2131$-$021 ($z=1.283$). This…

Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) at sub-parsec separations should be common in galactic nuclei, as a result of frequent galaxy mergers. Hydrodynamical simulations of circumbinary discs predict strong periodic modulation of the mass…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-10-05 M. Charisi , I. Bartos , Z. Haiman , A. M. Price-Whelan , M. J. Graham , E. C. Bellm , R. R. Laher , S. Marka

A small fraction of quasars have long been known to show bulk velocity offsets in the broad Balmer lines with respect to the systemic redshift of the host galaxy. Models to explain these offsets usually invoke broad-line region gas…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-18 Xin Liu , Yue Shen , Fuyan Bian , Abraham Loeb , Scott Tremaine

The search for periodic signals from blazars has become an actively pursued field of research in recent years. This is because periodic signals bring us information about the processes occurring near the innermost regions of blazars, which…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-02-11 Gopal Bhatta

Supermassive black hole binaries are the most promising source of gravitational-waves in the frequency band accessible to pulsar timing arrays. Most of these binaries will be too distant to detect individually, but together they will form…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2020-06-19 Bence Bécsy , Neil J. Cornish

Evidence for a low-frequency stochastic gravitational wave background has recently been reported based on analyses of pulsar timing array data. The most likely source of such a background is a population of supermassive black hole binaries,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-07-26 Gabriella Agazie , Akash Anumarlapudi , Anne M. Archibald , Zaven Arzoumanian , Paul T. Baker , Bence Bécsy , Laura Blecha , Adam Brazier , Paul R. Brook , Sarah Burke-Spolaor , Robin Case , J. Andrew Casey-Clyde , Maria Charisi , Shami Chatterjee , Tyler Cohen , James M. Cordes , Neil Cornish , Fronefield Crawford , H. Thankful Cromartie , Kathryn Crowter , Megan DeCesar , Paul B. Demorest , Matthew C. Digman , Timothy Dolch , Brendan Drachler , Elizabeth C. Ferrara , William Fiore , Emmanuel Fonseca , Gabriel Freedman , Nathaniel Garver-Daniels , Peter Gentile , Joseph Glaser , Deborah Good , Kayhan Gültekin , Jeffrey Hazboun , Sophie Hourihane , Ross Jennings , Aaron D. Johnson , Megan Jones , Andrew R. Kaiser , David Kaplan , Luke Zoltan Kelley , Matthew Kerr , Joey Key , Nima Laal , Michael Lam , William G. Lamb , T. Joseph W. Lazio , Natalia Lewandowska , Tingting Liu , Duncan R. Lorimer , Jing Santiago Luo , Ryan S. Lynch , Chung-Pei Ma , Dustin Madison , Alexander McEwen , James W. McKee , Maura McLaughlin , Natasha McMann , Bradley W. Meyers , Patrick M. Meyers , Chiara M. F. Mingarelli , andrea mitridate , priya natarajan , Cherry Ng , David Nice , Stella Koch Ocker , Ken Olum , Timothy T. Pennucci , Benetge Perera , Polina Petrov , Nihan Pol , Henri A. Radovan , Scott Ransom , Paul S. Ray , Joseph Romano , Shashwat C. Sardesai , Ann Schmiedekamp , Carl Schmiedekamp , Kai Schmitz , Brent J. Shapiro-Albert , Xavier Siemens , Joseph Simon , Magdalena Siwek , Ingrid Stairs , Dan Stinebring , Kevin Stovall , Abhimanyu Susobhanan , Joseph Swiggum , Jacob Taylor , Stephen Taylor , Jacob E. Turner , Caner Unal , Michele Vallisneri , Rutger van Haasteren , Sarah J. Vigeland , Haley M. Wahl , Caitlin Witt , Olivia Young

Motivated by observational searches for sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SBHBs) we develop a modular analytic model to determine the likelihood for detection of SBHBs by ongoing spectroscopic surveys. The model combines the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-07-18 Bryan J. Pflueger , Khai Nguyen , Tamara Bogdanovic , Michael Eracleous , Jessie C. Runnoe , Steinn Sigurdsson , Todd Boroson

Graham et al. (2015a) reported a periodically varying quasar and supermassive black hole binary candidate, PG1302-102 (hereafter PG1302), which was discovered in the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (CRTS). Its combined Lincoln…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-06-06 Tingting Liu , Suvi Gezari , M. Coleman Miller

Optical quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) with periodicity around hundreds to thousands of days have been accepted as an efficient indicator for sub-pc binary black hole systems (BBHs) in broad line active galactic nuclei (BLAGN). However,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-10-17 Zhang XueGuang

We present a new method to search for gravitational waves from quasinormal modes in the ringdowns of the remnants of the mergers of the binary black hole systems. The method is based on maximum likelihood estimation. We derive a time-domain…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-04-28 A. Królak , O. Dorosh

Most large galaxies host supermassive black holes in their nuclei and are subject to mergers, which can produce a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB), and hence periodic signatures due to orbital motion. We report unique periodic radio…

We present a systematic search for periodically varying quasars and supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) candidates in the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) Medium Deep Survey's MD09 field. From a color-selected sample of 670 quasars extracted from a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-12-14 T. Liu , S. Gezari , W. Burgett , K. Chambers , P. Draper , K. Hodapp , M. Huber , R. -P. Kudritzki , E. Magnier , N. Metcalfe , J. Tonry , R. Wainscoat , C. Waters

The photometric light curve of PG1302-102 shows periodic variability which makes this object one of the most plausible supermassive black hole binary candidate. Interestingly, the most recent study of its updated optical light curve reports…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-01-30 Andjelka B. Kovacevic , Luka C. Popovic , Sasa Simic , Dragana Ilic

The gravitational wave signals from coalescing Supermassive Black Hole Binaries are prime targets for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). With optimal data processing techniques, the LISA observatory should be able to detect…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2008-11-26 Neil J. Cornish , Edward K. Porter

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

Space-based gravitational-wave observatories will detect the early inspiral of stellar-mass binary black holes and can track their eccentricity evolution. However, untargeted searches in the space band are computationally demanding and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-05-01 Han Wang , Michael J. Williams , Ian Harry , Yi-Ming Hu

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) might detect gravitational waves (GWs) from massive black hole (MBH) binaries within this decade. The signal is expected to be an incoherent superposition of several nearly-monochromatic waves of different…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-11 Antoine Petiteau , Stanislav Babak , Alberto Sesana , Mariana de Araujo

We have been spectroscopically monitoring 88 quasars selected to have broad H$\beta$ emission lines offset from their systemic redshift by thousands of km s$^{-1}$. By analogy with single-lined spectroscopic binary stars, we consider these…