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Recoiling black holes: prospects for detection and implications of spin alignment
- Source :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, arXiv, NASA Astrophysics Data System
- Publication Year :
- 2015
- Publisher :
- arXiv, 2015.
-
Abstract
- Supermassive black hole (BH) mergers produce powerful gravitational wave (GW) emission. Asymmetry in this emission imparts a recoil kick to the merged BH, which can eject the BH from its host galaxy altogether. Recoiling BHs could be observed as offset active galactic nuclei (AGN). Several candidates have been identified, but systematic searches have been hampered by large uncertainties regarding their observability. By extracting merging BHs and host galaxy properties from the Illustris cosmological simulations, we have developed a comprehensive model for recoiling AGN. Here, for the first time, we model the effects of BH spin alignment and recoil dynamics based on the gas-richness of host galaxies. We predict that if BH spins are not highly aligned, seeing-limited observations could resolve offset AGN, making them promising targets for all-sky surveys. For randomly-oriented spins, less than about 10 spatially-offset AGN may be detectable in HST-COSMOS, and > 10^3 could be found with Pan-STARRS, LSST, Euclid, and WFIRST. Nearly a thousand velocity-offset AGN are predicted within the SDSS footprint; the rarity of large broad-line offsets among SDSS quasars is likely due in part to selection effects but suggests that spin alignment plays a role in suppressing recoils. Nonetheless, in our most physically motivated model where alignment occurs only in gas-rich mergers, hundreds of offset AGN should be found in all-sky surveys. Our findings strongly motivate a dedicated search for recoiling AGN.<br />30 pages, 19 figures. Accepted to MNRAS after minor revisions
- Subjects :
- Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
black hole physics
galaxies: active
Library science
FOS: Physical sciences
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
accretion
0103 physical sciences
galaxies: interactions
010306 general physics
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
Physics
European research
Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Astronomy
Astronomy and Astrophysics
accretion discs
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
gravitational waves
13. Climate action
Space and Planetary Science
Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
hydrodynamics
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, arXiv, NASA Astrophysics Data System
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....a489fd1b601106db3feddb26e3e2e8d6
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1508.01524