Intermediate mass black holes in AGN discs - I. Production and growth

McKernan, Barry; Ford, K. E. Saavik; Lyra, Wladimir; Perets, Hagai B.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21486.x

Cited by 368 publications

(322 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Possible BBH formation channels include dynamical formation in a dense stellar environment (see, e.g., Refs. [161][162][163][164][165]), possibly assisted by gas drag in galactic nuclear disks [166,167], or isolated binary evolution, either the classical variant via a common-envelope phase (see, e.g., Refs. [168][169][170][171][172][173]), possibly from population III binaries [174,175], or chemically homogeneous evolution in close tidally locked binaries [176,177].…”

Section: Astrophysical Implications and Future Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Abbott¹,

Abbott²,

Abbott³

et al. 2016

Phys. Rev. X

1,211

1,383

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the first detections of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers. In this paper, we present full results from a search for binary black hole merger signals with total masses up to 100M ⊙ and detailed implications from our observations of these systems. Our search, based on general-relativistic * Full author list given at the end of the article. † Deceased.Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGERS IN THE FIRST …PHYS. REV. X 6, 041015 (2016) 041015-5 models of gravitational-wave signals from binary black hole systems, unambiguously identified two signals, GW150914 and GW151226, with a significance of greater than 5σ over the observing period. It also identified a third possible signal, LVT151012, with substantially lower significance and with an 87% probability of being of astrophysical origin. We provide detailed estimates of the parameters of the observed systems. Both GW150914 and GW151226 provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the two-body motion of a compact-object binary in the large velocity, highly nonlinear regime. We do not observe any deviations from general relativity, and we place improved empirical bounds on several highorder post-Newtonian coefficients. From our observations, we infer stellar-mass binary black hole merger rates lying in the range 9-240 Gpc −3 yr −1 . These observations are beginning to inform astrophysical predictions of binary black hole formation rates and indicate that future observing runs of the Advanced detector network will yield many more gravitational-wave detections.

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Section: Astrophysical Implications and Future Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Abbott¹,

Abbott²,

Abbott³

et al. 2016

Phys. Rev. X

1,211

1,383

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“…A more promising avenue of capture of black holes by each other has recently been explored [147,148], in which stellar-mass black holes that are both in the accretion disk of an active galactic nucleus have their inspiral assisted by gas drag. Such processes might also lead to significant growth of stellar-mass black holes before they accrete onto the central supermassive black hole [149,150]. Because gas drag should circularize the orbits, this mechanism is likely to lead to orbits that are nearly circular by the time they enter the Advanced LIGO frequency range.…”

Section: Gravitational Captures and Primordial Black Holesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implications of the gravitational wave event GW150914

Miller

2016

Gen Relativ Gravit

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The era of gravitational-wave astronomy began on 14 September 2015, when the LIGO Scientific Collaboration detected the merger of two ∼ 30 M ⊙ black holes at a distance of ∼ 400 Mpc. This event has facilitated qualitatively new tests of gravitational theories, and has also produced exciting information about the astrophysical origin of black hole binaries. In this review we discuss the implications of this event for gravitational physics and astrophysics, as well as the expectations for future detections. In brief: (1) because the spins of the black holes could not be measured accurately and because mergers are not well calculated for modified theories of gravity, the current analysis of GW150914 does not place strong constraints on gravity variants that change only the generation of gravitational waves, but (2) it does strongly constrain alterations of the propagation of gravitational waves and alternatives to black holes. Finally, (3) many astrophysical models for the origin of heavy black hole binaries such as the GW150914 system are in play, but a reasonably robust conclusion that was reached even prior to the detection is that the environment of such systems needs to have a relatively low abundance of elements heavier than helium.

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“…Analogous to protoplanetary accretion disks, gaps and cavities can appear in AGN disks because of the presence of intermediate mass or SMBHs in the AGN disk (Artymowicz et al 1993;Syer & Clarke 1995;Ivanov et al 1999;Levin 2007;Kocsis et al 2012;McKernan et al 2014). The critical mass ratio (q = q crit ) of secondary black hole to primary SMBH, above which a gap is opened in a disk is (Lin & Papaloizou 1986;McKernan et al 2014)…”

Section: Searching For Gaps and Cavities In Disksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The critical mass ratio (q = q crit ) of secondary black hole to primary SMBH, above which a gap is opened in a disk is (Lin & Papaloizou 1986;McKernan et al 2014)…”

Section: Searching For Gaps and Cavities In Disksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Images of gaps and cavities in AGN disks will directly constrain models of disk thickness and viscosity as well as models of intermediate mass black hole formation (McKernan et al 2012). Imaging gaps or cavities in AGN disks requires much higher angular resolution than required for the tests outlined above but may be possible with future telescopes.…”

Section: Searching For Gaps and Cavities In Disksmentioning

confidence: 99%

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ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS AND QUASAR SCIENCE WITH APERTURE MASKING INTERFEROMETRY ON THEJAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE

Ford

McKernan

Sivaramakrishnan

et al. 2014

ApJ

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Due to feedback from accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs), active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are believed to play a key role in ΛCDM cosmology and galaxy formation. However, AGNs extreme luminosities and the small angular size of their accretion flows create a challenging imaging problem. We show that the James Webb Space Telescope's Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (JWST-NIRISS) Aperture Masking Interferometry (AMI) mode will enable true imaging (i.e., without any requirement of prior assumptions on source geometry) at ∼65 mas angular resolution at the centers of AGNs. This is advantageous for studying complex extended accretion flows around SMBHs and in other areas of angular-resolution-limited astrophysics. By simulating data sequences incorporating expected sources of noise, we demonstrate that JWST-NIRISS AMI mode can map extended structure at a pixel-to-pixel contrast of ∼10 −2 around an L = 7.5 point source, using short exposure times (minutes). Such images will test models of AGN feedback, fueling, and structure (complementary with ALMA observations), and are not currently supported by any ground-based IR interferometer or telescope. Binary point source contrast with NIRISS is ∼10 −4 (for observing binary nuclei in merging galaxies), significantly better than current ground-based optical or IR interferometry. JWST-NIRISS's seven-hole non-redundant mask has a throughput of 15%, and utilizes NIRISS's F277W (2.77 μm), F380M (3.8 μm), F430M (4.3 μm), and F480M (4.8 μm) filters. NIRISS's square pixels are 65 mas per side, with a field of view ∼2 × 2 . We also extrapolate our results to AGN science enabled by non-redundant masking on future 2.4 m and 16 m space telescopes working at long-UV to near-IR wavelengths.

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Intermediate mass black holes in AGN discs - I. Production and growth

Cited by 368 publications

References 63 publications

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Implications of the gravitational wave event GW150914

ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS AND QUASAR SCIENCE WITH APERTURE MASKING INTERFEROMETRY ON THEJAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE

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