Post‐Newtonian simulations of super‐massive black hole binaries in galactic nuclei

Berentzen, I.; Berczik, Peter; Merritt, David; Spurzem, Rainer

doi:10.1002/asna.200811098

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(25 reference statements)

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“…They found the initial eccentricities when MBHs become bound are very high with about e = 0.95 on average. This is also consistent with previous work (Aarseth 2003;Berentzen et al 2008Berentzen et al , 2009aPreto et al 2009;Li et al 2012). On the other hand, Khan et al (2013) find low eccentricities for some of their elliptical galaxy models.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 94%

The Link Between Ejected Stars, Hardening and Eccentricity Growth of Super Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei

Wang

Berczik

Spurzem

et al. 2013

ApJ

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The hierarchical galaxy formation picture suggests that super massive black holes (MBHs) observed in galactic nuclei today have grown from coalescence of massive black hole binaries (MBHB) after galaxy merging. Once the components of a MBHB become gravitationally bound, strong three-body encounters between the MBHB and stars dominate its evolution in a "dry" gas free environment, and change the MBHB's energy and angular momentum (semi-major axis, eccentricity and orientation). Here we present high accuracy direct N -body simulations of spherical and axisymmetric (rotating) galactic nuclei with order 10 6 stars and two massive black holes that are initially unbound. We analyze the properties of the ejected stars due to slingshot effects from three-body encounters with the MBHB in detail. Previous studies have investigated the eccentricity and energy changes of MBHs using approximate models or Monte-Carlo three body scatterings. We find general agreement with the average results of previous semi-analytic models for spherical galactic nuclei, but our results show a large statistical variation. Our new results show many more phase space details of how the process works, and also show the influence of stellar system rotation on the process. We detect that the angle between the orbital plane of the MBHBs and that of the stellar system (when it rotates) influences the phase-space properties of the ejected stars. We also find that massive MBHB tend to switch stars with counter-rotating orbits into co-rotating orbits during their interactions.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 94%

The Link Between Ejected Stars, Hardening and Eccentricity Growth of Super Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei

Wang

Berczik

Spurzem

et al. 2013

ApJ

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“…Because of the modular structure of the code, this improvement could be made by simply adding a function under the binary class. This function would calculate the appropriate post-Newtonian terms (up to 2.5 PN) for the acceleration and its first derivative, following the formalisms found in Blanchet (2002), Berentzen et al (2008), and Kupi et al (2006). Another extension that would make the binary class more complete in treating binary black holes is the inclusion of the relativistic effect of the asymmetric emission of gravitational radiation and recoil velocity, during the merging of two orbiting black holes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

MYRIAD: a newN-body code for simulations of star clusters

Konstantinidis

Kokkotas

2010

A&A

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Aims. We present a new C++ code for collisional N-body simulations of star clusters. Methods. The code uses the Hermite fourth-order scheme with block time steps, to advance the particles in time, while the forces and neighboring particles are computed using the GRAPE-6 board. Special treatment is used for close encounters, and binary or multiple subsystems that form either dynamically or exist in the initial configuration. The structure of the code is modular and allows the appropriate treatment of more physical phenomena, such as stellar and binary evolution, stellar collisions, and evolution of close black-hole binaries. Moreover, it can be easily modified so that the part of the code that uses GRAPE-6, could be replaced by another module that uses other accelerating-hardware such as the graphics processing units (GPUs).Results. Appropriate choice of the free parameters give a good accuracy and speed for simulations of star clusters up to and beyond core collapse. Simulations of Plummer models consisting of equal-mass stars reached core collapse at t 17 half-mass relaxation times, which compares very well with existing results, while the cumulative relative error in the energy remained below 10 −3 . Comparisons with published results of other codes for the time of core collapse for different initial conditions, show excellent agreement. Simulations of King models with an initial mass-function, similar to those found in the literature, reached core collapse at t 0.17 ± 0.05 half-mass relaxation times, which is slightly earlier than expected from previous work. Finally, the code accuracy becomes comparable to and even better than the accuracy of existing codes, when a number of close binary systems is dynamically created in a simulation. This is because of the high accuracy of the method that is used for close binary and multiple subsystems. Conclusions. The code can be used for evolving star clusters containing equal-mass stars or star clusters with an initial mass function (IMF) containing an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) at the center and/or a fraction of primordial binaries, which are systems of particular astrophysical interest.

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“…To overcome the last parsec separating the MBHs and bring them to the efficient gravitational wave (GW) driven inspiral several scenario have been proposed. Here are few possibilities: rotation of the merging galaxies and triaxial potential [13], processes involving gas [14], resonant relaxation [15], massive perturber [16], young compact stars cluster [17], effect from IMBH [18], etc. When the separation is less than 10 −3 pc, the binary evolution is efficiently driven by the gravitational radiation and can reach the coalescence in less than 10 9 years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Search for spinning black hole binaries in mock LISA data using a genetic algorithm

Shang

Babak

Feroz³

2010

Phys. Rev. D

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International audienceCoalescing massive black hole binaries are the strongest and probably the most important gravitational wave sources in the LISA band. The spin and orbital precessions bring complexity in the waveform and make the likelihood surface richer in structure as compared to the nonspinning case. We introduce an extended multimodal genetic algorithm which utilizes the properties of the signal and the detector response function to analyze the data from the third round of mock LISA data challenge (MLDC3.2). The performance of this method is comparable, if not better, to already existing algorithms. We have found all five sources present in MLDC3.2 and recovered the coalescence time, chirp mass, mass ratio, and sky location with reasonable accuracy. As for the orbital angular momentum and two spins of the black holes, we have found a large number of widely separated modes in the parameter space with similar maximum likelihood values

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Post‐Newtonian simulations of super‐massive black hole binaries in galactic nuclei

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

The Link Between Ejected Stars, Hardening and Eccentricity Growth of Super Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei

The Link Between Ejected Stars, Hardening and Eccentricity Growth of Super Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei

MYRIAD: a newN-body code for simulations of star clusters

Search for spinning black hole binaries in mock LISA data using a genetic algorithm

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