The merger of spinning, accreting supermassive black hole binaries

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Ennoggi, Lorenzo, Campanelli, Manuela, Krolik, Julian, Noble, Scott C., Zlochower, Yosef, de Simone, Maria Chiara
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Ennoggi, Lorenzo
Campanelli, Manuela
Krolik, Julian
Noble, Scott C.
Zlochower, Yosef
de Simone, Maria Chiara
author_facet Ennoggi, Lorenzo
Campanelli, Manuela
Krolik, Julian
Noble, Scott C.
Zlochower, Yosef
de Simone, Maria Chiara
contents Because they are likely to accrete substantial amounts of interstellar gas, merging supermassive binary black holes are expected to be strong multimessenger sources, radiating gravitational waves, photons from thermal gas, and photons from relativistic electrons energized by relativistic jets. Here we report on a numerical simulation that covers the late inspiral, merger, and initial postmerger phase of such a system where both black holes have the same mass and spin, and both spin axes are parallel to the orbital angular momentum. The simulation incorporates both 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics and numerical relativity. The thermal photon power during the late inspiral, merger, and immediate postmerger phases is drawn from strong shocks rather than dissipation of turbulence inside a smoothly structured accretion disk as typically found around accreting single black holes. We find that the thermal photon and jet Poynting flux outputs are closely related in time, and we posit a mechanism that enforces this relation. The power radiated in both photons and jets diminishes gradually as merger is approached, but jumps sharply at merger to a noisy plateau. Such a distinct lightcurve should aid efforts to identify supermassive black hole mergers, with or without accompanying gravitational wave detections.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_10319
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The merger of spinning, accreting supermassive black hole binaries
Ennoggi, Lorenzo
Campanelli, Manuela
Krolik, Julian
Noble, Scott C.
Zlochower, Yosef
de Simone, Maria Chiara
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Computational Physics
Plasma Physics
Because they are likely to accrete substantial amounts of interstellar gas, merging supermassive binary black holes are expected to be strong multimessenger sources, radiating gravitational waves, photons from thermal gas, and photons from relativistic electrons energized by relativistic jets. Here we report on a numerical simulation that covers the late inspiral, merger, and initial postmerger phase of such a system where both black holes have the same mass and spin, and both spin axes are parallel to the orbital angular momentum. The simulation incorporates both 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics and numerical relativity. The thermal photon power during the late inspiral, merger, and immediate postmerger phases is drawn from strong shocks rather than dissipation of turbulence inside a smoothly structured accretion disk as typically found around accreting single black holes. We find that the thermal photon and jet Poynting flux outputs are closely related in time, and we posit a mechanism that enforces this relation. The power radiated in both photons and jets diminishes gradually as merger is approached, but jumps sharply at merger to a noisy plateau. Such a distinct lightcurve should aid efforts to identify supermassive black hole mergers, with or without accompanying gravitational wave detections.
title The merger of spinning, accreting supermassive black hole binaries
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Computational Physics
Plasma Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10319