Rapid Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Galaxy Mergers with Gas

Details Rapid Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Galaxy Mergers with Gas Rapid Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Galaxy Mergers with Gas

2007-06-11

arxiv.org/abs/0706.1562v1

Science 316 (2007) 1874-1877

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Accepted for publication in Science, 40 pages, 7 figures, Supplementary Information included

Scientific paper

10.1126/science.1141858

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a ubiquitous component of the nuclei of galaxies. It is normally assumed that, following the merger of two massive galaxies, a SMBH binary will form, shrink due to stellar or gas dynamical processes and ultimately coalesce by emitting a burst of gravitational waves. However, so far it has not been possible to show how two SMBHs bind during a galaxy merger with gas due to the difficulty of modeling a wide range of spatial scales. Here we report hydrodynamical simulations that track the formation of a SMBH binary down to scales of a few light years following the collision between two spiral galaxies. A massive, turbulent nuclear gaseous disk arises as a result of the galaxy merger. The black holes form an eccentric binary in the disk in less than a million years as a result of the gravitational drag from the gas rather than from the stars.

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