Related papers: Self-lensing flares from black hole binaries II: o…
The self-lensing of a massive black hole binary (MBHB), which occurs when the two BHs are aligned close to the line of sight, is expected to produce periodic, short-duration flares. Here we study the shapes of self-lensing flares (SLFs) via…
Self-lensing flares (SLFs) are expected to be produced once or twice per orbit by an accreting massive black hole binary (MBHB), if the eclipsing MBHBs are observed close to edge-on. SLFs can provide valuable electromagnetic (EM) signatures…
Sub-parsec supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries are expected to be common in active galactic nuclei (AGN), as a result of the hierarchical build-up of galaxies via mergers. While direct evidence for these compact binaries is lacking, a…
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…
Nearly 150 massive black hole binary (MBHB) candidates at sub-pc orbital separations have been reported in recent literature. Nevertheless, the definitive detection of even a single such object remains elusive. If at least one of the black…
Microlensing is one of the most promising tools for discovering stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in the Milky Way because it allows us to probe dark or faint celestial compact objects. While the existence of stellar-mass BHs has been…
Black hole (BH) shadows in dynamical binary BHs (BBHs) have been produced via ray-tracing techniques on top of expensive fully non-linear numerical relativity simulations. We show that the main features of these shadows are captured by a…
Supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary systems are unavoidable outcomes of galaxy mergers. Their dynamics encode information about their formation and growth, the composition of their host galactic nuclei, the evolution of galaxies, and the…
Super-Massive Black Holes reside in galactic nuclei, where they exhibit episodic bright flares due to accretion events. Taking into account relativistic effects, namely, the boosting and lensing of X-ray flares, we further examine the…
Binaries containing compact objects, if viewed close to edge on, can produce periodic brightening events under certain conditions on the masses, radii, and binary separation. Such flares are caused by one object gravitational lensing the…
Sub-parsec binary massive black holes (BBHs) are long anticipated to exist in many QSOs but remain observationally elusive. In this paper, we propose a novel method to probe sub-parsec BBHs through microlensing of lensed QSOs. If a QSO…
Recent observations indicate that many if not all galaxies host massive central black holes (BHs). In this paper we explore the influence of supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) on their actions as gravitational lenses. When lenses are…
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has now seen first light, and over a 10 year duration, LSST is projected to catalogue tens of millions of quasars, many of which are expected to be associated with sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries…
Here we discuss the possibility of super-massive binary black hole (SMBBH) detection, using the shifts of the broad lines emitted from a binary system. We perform a number of simulations of shapes and shifts of $H_{\beta}$ lines emitted…
In this paper, we study and compare the optical and X-ray counterparts of subparsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs). With that aim, we simulated the profiles of optical spectral lines emitted from the broad line region (BLR) as…
The signature of the self-microlensing in compact binaries (white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes) is a flare with the characteristic time of typically a few minutes. The probability of detecting these microlensing events can be as…
Hierarchical structure formation inevitably leads to the formation of supermassive binary black holes (BBHs) with a sub-parsec separation in galactic nuclei. However, to date there has been no unambiguous detection of such systems. In an…
Binary black holes (BBH) are expected to form and merge in active galactic nuclei (AGN), deep in the potential well of a supermassive black hole (SMBH), from populations that exist in a nuclear star cluster (NSC). Here we investigate the…
We propose a new spectral signature for supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) with circumbinary gas disks: a sharp drop in flux blueward of the Lyman limit. A prominent edge is produced if the gas dominating the emission in the Lyman…
Supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) are the anticipated byproducts of galaxy mergers and play a pivotal role in shaping galaxy evolution, gravitational wave emissions, and accretion physics. Despite their theoretical prevalence, direct…