2018/06/14 by Stéphane d'Ascoli, Stéphane d’Ascoli, Scott C. Noble +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Binary black hole #Galaxy #Gravitational wave #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Spectral line #Supermassive black hole #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aad8b4
Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, 11 color figures
arxiv created 2018/06/14 · openalex created_date 2018/06/21 · openalex publication_date 2018/10/01 · arxiv updated 2018/10/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract We present the first relativistic prediction of the electromagnetic emission from the surrounding gas of a supermassive binary black hole system approaching merger. Using a ray-tracing code to post-process data from a general relativistic 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulation, we generate images and spectra, and analyze the viewing angle dependence of the light emitted. When the accretion rate is relatively high, the circumbinary disk, accretion streams, and mini-disks combine to emit light in the UV/extreme-UV bands. We posit a thermal Compton hard X-ray spectrum for coronal emission; at high accretion rates, it is almost entirely produced in the mini-disks, but at lower accretion rates it is the primary radiation mechanism in the mini-disks and accretion streams as well. Due to relativistic beaming and gravitational lensing, the angular distribution of the power radiated is strongly anisotropic, especially near the equatorial plane.