Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-26T21:32:14.757Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Simulations of Recoiling Massive Black Holes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2010

Javiera Guedes
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95062, USA Email: javiera@ucolick.org
Piero Madau
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95062, USA Email: javiera@ucolick.org
Lucio Mayer
Affiliation:
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-9057 Zürich, Switzerland
Michael Kuhlen
Affiliation:
Theoretical Astrophysics Center, University of California Berkeley601 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Jürg Diemand
Affiliation:
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-9057 Zürich, Switzerland
Marcel Zemp
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The coalescence of black hole binaries is a significant source of gravitational wave radiation. The typically asymmetric nature of this emission, which carries linear momentum, can result in the recoil of the black hole remnant with velocities in the range 100 < Vrecoil < 3750 km s−1. The detectability of recoiling massive black holes (MBH) as off-nuclear QSOs is tightly connected with the properties of the host galaxy, which determine the MBH's orbit and fuel reservoir. We present the results of N-body simulations of recoiling MBHs in high-resolution, non-axisymmetric potentials. We find that if the recoil velocities are high enough to reach regions of the galaxy dominated by the generally triaxial dark matter distribution, the return time is significantly extended when compared to a spherical distribution. We also perform simulations of recoiling MBHs traveling in gas merger remnants, where large amounts of gas have been funneled to the central regions, In this case, the MBHs remain within R<1 kpc from the center of the host even for high recoil velocities (Vrecoil = 1200 km s−1) due to the compactness of the remnant galaxy's nuclear disk. We discuss the implications of both scenarios for detectability.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010

References

Diemand, J., Kuhlen, M., & Madau, P. 2007, ApJ, 657, 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guedes, J., Diemand, J., Zemp, M., Kuhlen, M., Madau, P., & Mayer, L. 2008, AN, 329, 1004Google Scholar
Guedes, J., Madau, P., Kuhlen, M., Diemand, J., & Zemp, M. 2009, ApJ, 702, 890CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, L., Kazantzidis, S., Madau, P., Colpi, M., Quinn, T., & Wadsley, J. 2007, Science, 316, 1874CrossRefGoogle Scholar