Journal ArticleDOI
The population of viscosity- and gravitational wave-driven supermassive black hole binaries among luminous active galactic nuclei
TLDR
In this paper, the authors use simple disk models for the circumbinary gas and for the binary-disk interaction to follow the orbital decay of SMBHBs with a range of total masses (M) and mass ratios (q), through physically distinct regions of the disk, until gravitational waves (GWs) take over their evolution.Abstract:
Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) in galactic nuclei are thought to be a common by-product of major galaxy mergers. We use simple disk models for the circumbinary gas and for the binary-disk interaction to follow the orbital decay of SMBHBs with a range of total masses (M) and mass ratios (q), through physically distinct regions of the disk, until gravitational waves (GWs) take over their evolution. Prior to the GW-driven phase, the viscous decay is generically in the stalled secondary-dominated regime. SMBHBs spend a non-negligible fraction of a fiducial time of 107 yr at orbital periods between days t orb yr, and we argue that they may be sufficiently common to be detectable, provided they are luminous during these stages. A dedicated optical or X-ray survey could identify coalescing SMBHBs statistically, as a population of periodically variable quasars, whose abundance obeys the scaling N var t ? var within a range of periods around t var~ tens of weeks. SMBHBs with M 107 M ?, with 0.5 ? 1.5, would probe the physics of viscous orbital decay, whereas the detection of a population of higher-mass binaries, with ? = 8/3, would confirm that their decay is driven by GWs. The lowest-mass SMBHBs (M 105-6 M ?) enter the GW-driven regime at short orbital periods, when they are already in the frequency band of the Laser Interferometric Space Antenna (LISA). While viscous processes are negligible in the last few years of coalescence, they could reduce the amplitude of any unresolved background due to near-stationary LISA sources. We discuss modest constraints on the SMBHB population already available from existing data, and the sensitivity and sky coverage requirements for a detection in future surveys. SMBHBs may also be identified from velocity shifts in their spectra; we discuss the expected abundance of SMBHBs as a function of their orbital velocity.read more
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The NANOGrav 11-year Data Set: Pulsar-timing Constraints On The Stochastic Gravitational-wave Background
Zaven Arzoumanian,P. T. Baker,Adam Brazier,Sarah Burke-Spolaor,S. J. Chamberlin,Shami Chatterjee,B. Christy,James M. Cordes,Neil J. Cornish,Fronefield Crawford,H. Thankful Cromartie,Kathryn Crowter,Megan E. DeCesar,Paul Demorest,Timothy Dolch,Justin A. Ellis,Robert D. Ferdman,Elizabeth C. Ferrara,William M. Folkner,Emmanuel Fonseca,N. Garver-Daniels,Peter A. Gentile,Roland Haas,Jeffrey S. Hazboun,E. A. Huerta,K. Islo,Glenn Jones,M. L. Jones,David L. Kaplan,V. M. Kaspi,Michael T. Lam,T. J. W. Lazio,Lina Levin,Andrea N. Lommen,Duncan R. Lorimer,Jing Luo,Ryan S. Lynch,D. R. Madison,Maura McLaughlin,Sean T. McWilliams,Chiara M. F. Mingarelli,Cherry Ng,David J. Nice,Ryan S. Park,Timothy T. Pennucci,Nihan Pol,Scott M. Ransom,Paul S. Ray,Alexander Rasskazov,Xavier Siemens,Joseph Simon,Renée Spiewak,Ingrid H. Stairs,Daniel R. Stinebring,Kevin Stovall,Joseph K. Swiggum,Stephen Taylor,Michele Vallisneri,R. van Haasteren,Sarah J. Vigeland,Weiwei Zhu +60 more
TL;DR: In this paper, an isotropic stochastic GWB in the newly released 11-year data set from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) was searched for and the first pulsar-timing array (PTA) constraints that are robust against SSE errors were obtained.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assisted inspirals of stellar mass black holes embedded in AGN discs: solving the ‘final au problem’
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the evolution of stellar mass black hole binaries (BHBs) which are formed in the self-gravitating disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN).
Journal ArticleDOI
Rapid and Bright Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers in Active Galactic Nuclei
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the fate of binary black hole binaries in active galactic nuclei, which get trapped in the inner region of the accretion disk around the central supermassive black hole and showed that binary black holes can migrate into and then rapidly merge within the disk well within a Salpeter time.
Journal ArticleDOI
A possible close supermassive black-hole binary in a quasar with optical periodicity
Matthew J. Graham,S. G. Djorgovski,Daniel Stern,Eilat Glikman,Andrew J. Drake,Ashish Mahabal,Ciro Donalek,S. M. Larson,Eric Christensen +8 more
TL;DR: The detection of a strong, smooth periodic signal in the optical variability of the quasar PG 1302−102 with a mean observed period of 1,884 ± 88 days is reported.
Journal ArticleDOI
Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap
Leor Barack,Vitor Cardoso,Vitor Cardoso,Samaya Nissanke,Samaya Nissanke,Samaya Nissanke,Thomas P. Sotiriou,Abbas Askar,Abbas Askar,C. Belczynski,Gianfranco Bertone,Edi Bon,Diego Blas,Richard Brito,Tomasz Bulik,Clare Burrage,Christian T. Byrnes,Chiara Caprini,Masha Chernyakova,Piotr T. Chruściel,Piotr T. Chruściel,Monica Colpi,Monica Colpi,Valeria Ferrari,Daniele Gaggero,Jonathan R. Gair,Juan Garcia-Bellido,S. F. Hassan,Lavinia Heisenberg,Martin Hendry,Ik Siong Heng,Carlos A. R. Herdeiro,Tanja Hinderer,Tanja Hinderer,Assaf Horesh,Bradley J. Kavanagh,Bence Kocsis,Michael Kramer,Michael Kramer,Alexandre Le Tiec,Chiara M. F. Mingarelli,Germano Nardini,Gijs Nelemans,Gijs Nelemans,Carlos Palenzuela,Paolo Pani,Albino Perego,Albino Perego,Edward K. Porter,Elena M. Rossi,Patricia Schmidt,Alberto Sesana,Ulrich Sperhake,Ulrich Sperhake,Antonio Stamerra,Leo C. Stein,Nicola Tamanini,Thomas M. Tauris,Thomas M. Tauris,L. Arturo Ureña-López,Frederic H. Vincent,Marta Volonteri,Barry Wardell,Norbert Wex,Kent Yagi,Tiziano Abdelsalhin,Miguel A. Aloy,Pau Amaro-Seoane,Lorenzo Annulli,Manuel Arca-Sedda,Ibrahima Bah,Enrico Barausse,Elvis Barakovic,Robert Benkel,Charles L. Bennett,Laura Bernard,Sebastiano Bernuzzi,Christopher P. L. Berry,Emanuele Berti,Emanuele Berti,Miguel Bezares,Jose J. Blanco-Pillado,Jose Luis Blázquez-Salcedo,Matteo Bonetti,Mateja Bošković,Zeljka Bosnjak,Katja Bricman,Bernd Brügmann,Pedro R. Capelo,Sante Carloni,Pablo Cerdá-Durán,C. Charmousis,Sylvain Chaty,Aurora Clerici,Andrew J. Coates,Marta Colleoni,Lucas G. Collodel,Geoffrey Compère,William G. Cook,Isabel Cordero-Carrión,Miguel Correia,Álvaro de la Cruz-Dombriz,Viktor G. Czinner,Kyriakos Destounis,Kostas Dialektopoulos,Kostas Dialektopoulos,Daniela D. Doneva,Daniela D. Doneva,Massimo Dotti,Massimo Dotti,Amelia Drew,Christopher Eckner,James Edholm,Roberto Emparan,Roberto Emparan,Recai Erdem,Miguel Ferreira,Pedro G. Ferreira,Andrew Finch,José A. Font,Nicola Franchini,Kwinten Fransen,Dmitry V. Gal'tsov,Dmitry V. Gal'tsov,A. Ganguly,Davide Gerosa,Kostas Glampedakis,A. Gomboc,Ariel Goobar,Leonardo Gualtieri,Eduardo Guendelman,Francesco Haardt,Troels Harmark,Filip Hejda,Thomas Hertog,Seth Hopper,Sascha Husa,Nada Ihanec,Taishi Ikeda,Amruta Jaodand,Amruta Jaodand,Philippe Jetzer,Xisco Jiménez-Forteza,Xisco Jiménez-Forteza,Marc Kamionkowski,David E. Kaplan,Stelios Kazantzidis,Masashi Kimura,Shiho Kobayashi,Kostas D. Kokkotas,Julian H. Krolik,Jutta Kunz,Claus Lämmerzahl,Claus Lämmerzahl,Paul D. Lasky,José P. S. Lemos,Jackson Levi Said,Stefano Liberati,Jorge C. Lopes,Raimon Luna,Yin-Zhe Ma,Yin-Zhe Ma,Elisa Maggio,Alberto Mangiagli,Alberto Mangiagli,Marina Martinez Montero,Andrea Maselli,Lucio Mayer,Anupam Mazumdar,C. Messenger,Brice Ménard,Masato Minamitsuji,Christopher J. Moore,David F. Mota,Sourabh Nampalliwar,Andrea Nerozzi,David A. Nichols,Emil Nissimov,Martin Obergaulinger,Niels A. Obers,Roberto Oliveri,George Pappas,Vedad Pasic,H. V. Peiris,Tanja Petrushevska,Denis Pollney,Geraint Pratten,Nemanja Rakic,Nemanja Rakic,István Rácz,Miren Radia,Fethi M. Ramazanoğlu,Antoni Ramos-Buades,Guilherme Raposo,Marek Rogatko,Roxana Rosca-Mead,D. Rosińska,Stephan Rosswog,Ester Ruiz-Morales,Mairi Sakellariadou,Nicolas Sanchis-Gual,Om Sharan Salafia,Anuradha Samajdar,Alicia M. Sintes,Majda Smole,Carlos F. Sopuerta,Rafael Souza-Lima,Marko Stalevski,Nikolaos Stergioulas,Chris Stevens,Tomas Tamfal,Alejandro Torres-Forné,Sergey S. Tsygankov,Kivanç I. Ünlütürk,Rosa Valiante,Maarten van de Meent,José M. Velhinho,Yosef Verbin,Bert Vercnocke,Daniele Vernieri,Rodrigo Vicente,Vincenzo Vitagliano,Amanda Weltman,Bernard F. Whiting,A. R. Williamson,Helvi Witek,Aneta Wojnar,Kadri Yakut,Haopeng Yan,S. S. Yazadjiev,G. Zaharijas,Miguel Zilhão +231 more
TL;DR: A comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the relevant fields of research, summarize important open problems, and lay out a roadmap for future progress can be found in this article, which is an initiative taken within the framework of the European Action on 'Black holes, Gravitational waves and Fundamental Physics'.
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Journal ArticleDOI
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Journal ArticleDOI
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