512 research outputs found
Gravitational wave recoil in Robinson-Trautman spacetimes
We consider the gravitational recoil due to non-reflection-symmetric
gravitational wave emission in the context of axisymmetric Robinson-Trautman
spacetimes. We show that regular initial data evolve generically into a final
configuration corresponding to a Schwarzschild black-hole moving with constant
speed. For the case of (reflection-)symmetric initial configurations, the mass
of the remnant black-hole and the total energy radiated away are completely
determined by the initial data, allowing us to obtain analytical expressions
for some recent numerical results that have been appeared in the literature.
Moreover, by using the Galerkin spectral method to analyze the non-linear
regime of the Robinson-Trautman equations, we show that the recoil velocity can
be estimated with good accuracy from some asymmetry measures (namely the first
odd moments) of the initial data. The extension for the non-axisymmetric case
and the implications of our results for realistic situations involving head-on
collision of two black holes are also discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, final version to appear in PR
The Assembly and Merging History of Supermassive Black Holes in Hierarchical Models of Galaxy Formation
We assess models for the assembly of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the
center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical build-up far up in the dark
halo `merger tree'. We assume that the first `seed' black holes (BHs) formed in
(mini)halos collapsing at z=20 from high-sigma density fluctuations. As these
pregalactic holes become incorporated through a series of mergers into larger
and larger halos, they sink to the center owing to dynamical friction, accrete
a fraction of the gas in the merger remnant to become supermassive, form a
binary system, and eventually coalesce. The merger history of dark matter halos
and associated BHs is followed by cosmological Monte Carlo realizations of the
merger hierarchy. A simple model, where quasar activity is driven by major
mergers and SMBHs accrete at the Eddington rate a mass that scales with the
fifth power of the velocity dispersion, is shown to reproduce the optical LF of
quasars in the redshift range 1<z<4. Binary and triple BH interactions are
followed in our merger tree. The assumptions underlying our scenario lead to
the prediction of a population of massive BHs wandering in galaxy halos and the
intergalactic medium at the present epoch, and contributing <10% to the total
BH mass density. At all epochs the fraction of binary SMBHs in galaxy nuclei is
of order 10%, while the fraction of binary quasars is less than 0.3%Comment: revised version, accepted for publication in the ApJ, emulateapj, 15
pages, 16 figure
Four-Body Effects in Globular Cluster Black Hole Coalescence
In the high density cores of globular clusters, multibody interactions are
expected to be common, with the result that black holes in binaries are
hardened by interactions. It was shown by Sigurdsson & Hernquist (1993) and
others that 10 solar mass black holes interacting exclusively by three-body
encounters do not merge in the clusters themselves, because recoil kicks the
binaries out of the clusters before the binaries are tight enough to merge.
Here we consider a new mechanism, involving four-body encounters. Numerical
simulations by a number of authors suggest that roughly 20-50% of binary-binary
encounters will eject one star but leave behind a stable hierarchical triple.
If the orbital plane of the inner binary is strongly tilted with respect to the
orbital plane of the outer object, a secular Kozai resonance, first
investigated in the context of asteroids in the Solar System, can increase the
eccentricity of the inner body significantly. We show that in a substantial
fraction of cases the eccentricity is driven to a high enough value that the
inner binary will merge by gravitational radiation, without a strong
accompanying kick. Thus the merged object remains in the cluster; depending on
the binary fraction of black holes and the inclination distribution of
newly-formed hierarchical triples, this mechanism may allow massive black holes
to accumulate through successive mergers in the cores of globular clusters. It
may also increase the likelihood that stellar-mass black holes in globular
clusters will be detectable by their gravitational radiation.Comment: Submitted to ApJ Letters (includes emulateapj.sty
Radiation recoil from highly distorted black holes
We present results from numerical evolutions of single black holes distorted
by axisymmetric, but equatorially asymmetric, gravitational (Brill) waves. Net
radiated energies, apparent horizon embeddings, and recoil velocities are shown
for a range of Brill wave parameters, including both even and odd parity
distortions of Schwarzschild black holes. We find that a wave packet initially
concentrated on the black hole throat, a likely model also for highly
asymmetric stellar collapse and late stage binary mergers, can generate a
maximum recoil velocity of about 150 (23) km/sec for even (odd) parity
perturbations, significantly less than that required to eject black holes from
galactic cores.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Probing the presence of a single or binary black hole in the globular cluster NGC 6752 with pulsar dynamics
The five millisecond pulsars that inhabit NGC 6752 display locations or
accelerations that are quite unusual compared to all other pulsars known in
globular clusters. In particular PSR-A, a binary pulsar, lives in the cluster
halo, while PSR-B and PSR-E, located in the core, show remarkably high negative
spin derivatives. This is suggestive that some uncommon dynamical process is at
play in the cluster core that we attribute to the presence of a massive
perturber. We here investigate whether a single intermediate-mass black hole,
lying on the extrapolation of the Mass versus Sigma relation observed in galaxy
spheroids, or a less massive binary consisting of two black holes could play
the requested role. To this purpose we simulated binary-binary encounters
involving PSR-A, its companion star, and the black hole(s). Various scenarios
are discussed in detail. In our close 4-body encounters, a black hole-black
hole binary may attract on a long-term stable orbit a millisecond pulsar.
Timing measurements on the captured satellite-pulsar, member of a hierarchical
triplet, could unambiguously unveil the presence of a black hole(s) in the core
of a globular cluster.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journa
Gravitational Radiation from Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
Recent X-ray observations of galaxies with ROSAT, ASCA, and Chandra have
revealed numerous bright off-center point sources which, if isotropic emitters,
are likely to be intermediate-mass black holes, with hundreds to thousands of
solar masses. The origin of these objects is under debate, but observations
suggest that a significant number of them currently reside in young
high-density stellar clusters. There is also growing evidence that some
Galactic globular clusters harbor black holes of similar mass, from
observations of stellar kinematics. In such high-density stellar environments,
the interactions of intermediate-mass black holes are promising sources of
gravitational waves for ground-based and space-based detectors. Here we explore
the signal strengths of binaries containing intermediate-mass black holes or
stellar-mass black holes in dense stellar clusters. We estimate that a few to
tens per year of these objects will be detectable during the last phase of
their inspiral with the advanced LIGO detector, and up to tens per year will be
seen during merger, depending on the spins of the black holes. We also find
that if these objects reside in globular clusters then tens of sources will be
detectable with LISA from the Galactic globular system in a five year
integration, and similar numbers will be detectable from more distant galaxies.
The signal strength depends on the eccentricity distribution, but we show that
there is promise for strong detection of pericenter precession and
Lense-Thirring precession of the orbital plane. We conclude by discussing what
could be learned about binaries, dense stellar systems, and strong gravity if
such signals are detected.Comment: Minor changes, accepted by ApJ (December 10, 2002
Black-hole horizons as probes of black-hole dynamics I: post-merger recoil in head-on collisions
The understanding of strong-field dynamics near black-hole horizons is a
long-standing and challenging prob- lem in general relativity. Recent advances
in numerical relativity and in the geometric characterization of black- hole
horizons open new avenues into the problem. In this first paper in a series of
two, we focus on the analysis of the recoil occurring in the merger of binary
black holes, extending the analysis initiated in [1] with Robinson- Trautman
spacetimes. More specifically, we probe spacetime dynamics through the
correlation of quantities defined at the black-hole horizon and at null
infinity. The geometry of these hypersurfaces responds to bulk gravitational
fields acting as test screens in a scattering perspective of spacetime
dynamics. Within a 3 + 1 approach we build an effective-curvature vector from
the intrinsic geometry of dynamical-horizon sections and correlate its
evolution with the flux of Bondi linear momentum at large distances. We employ
this setup to study numerically the head-on collision of nonspinning black
holes and demonstrate its validity to track the qualita- tive aspects of recoil
dynamics at infinity. We also make contact with the suggestion that the
antikick can be described in terms of a "slowness parameter" and how this can
be computed from the local properties of the horizon. In a companion paper [2]
we will further elaborate on the geometric aspects of this approach and on its
relation with other approaches to characterize dynamical properties of
black-hole horizons.Comment: final version published on PR
A comparison of the optical properties of radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars
We have made radio observations of 87 optically selected quasars at 5 GHz
with the VLA in order to measure the radio power for these objects and hence
determine how the fraction of radio-loud quasars varies with redshift and
optical luminosity. The sample has been selected from the recently completed
Edinburgh Quasar Survey and covers a redshift range of 0.3 < z < 1.5 and an
optical absolute magnitude range of -26.5 < M_{B} < -23.5 (h, q_{0} = 1/2). We
have also matched up other existing surveys with the FIRST and NVSS radio
catalogues and combined these data so that the optical luminosity-redshift
plane is now far better sampled than previously. We have fitted a model to the
probability of a quasar being radio-loud as a function of absolute magnitude
and redshift and from this model infer the radio-loud and radio-quiet optical
luminosity functions. The radio-loud optical luminosity function is featureless
and flatter than the radio-quiet one. It evolves at a marginally slower rate if
quasars evolve by density evolution, but the difference in the rate of
evolutions of the two different classes is much less than was previously
thought. We show, using Monte-Carlo simulations, that the observed difference
in the shape of the optical luminosity functions can be partly accounted for by
Doppler boosting of the optical continuum of the radio-loud quasars and explain
how this can be tested in the future.Comment: 33 pages, 9 postscript figures, uses the AAS aaspp4 LaTeX style file,
to appear in the 1 February 1999 issue of The Astrophysical Journa
Head--on Collision of Two Unequal Mass Black Holes
We present results from the first fully nonlinear numerical calculations of
the head--on collision of two unequal mass black holes. Selected waveforms of
the most dominant l=2, 3 and 4 quasinormal modes are shown, as are the total
radiated energies and recoil velocities for a range of mass ratios and initial
separations. Our results validate the close and distant separation limit
perturbation studies, and suggest that the head--on collision scenario is not
likely to produce an astrophysically significant recoil effect.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
A Very Hot, High Redshift Cluster of Galaxies: More Trouble for Omega_0 = 1
We have observed the most distant (z=0.829) cluster of galaxies in the
Einstein Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey, with the ASCA and ROSAT
satellites. We find an X-ray temperature of 12.3 +3.1/-2.2 keV for this
cluster, and the ROSAT map reveals significant substructure. The high
temperature of MS1054-0321 is consistent with both its approximate velocity
dispersion, based on the redshifts of 12 cluster members we have obtained at
the Keck and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescopes, and with its weak lensing
signature. The X-ray temperature of this cluster implies a virial mass ~ 7.4 x
10^14 h^-1 solar masses, if the mean matter density in the universe equals the
critical value, or larger if Omega_0 < 1. Finding such a hot, massive cluster
in the EMSS is extremely improbable if clusters grew from Gaussian
perturbations in an Omega_0 = 1 universe. Combining the assumptions that
Omega_0 = 1 and that the intial perturbations were Gaussian with the observed
X-ray temperature function at low redshift, we show that the probability of
this cluster occurring in the volume sampled by the EMSS is less than a few
times 10^{-5}. Nor is MS1054-0321 the only hot cluster at high redshift; the
only two other EMSS clusters already observed with ASCA also have
temperatures exceeding 8 keV. Assuming again that the initial perturbations
were Gaussian and Omega_0 = 1, we find that each one is improbable at the <
10^{-2} level. These observations, along with the fact that these luminosities
and temperatures of the high- clusters all agree with the low-z L_X-T_X
relation, argue strongly that Omega_0 < 1. Otherwise, the initial perturbations
must be non-Gaussian, if these clusters' temperatures do indeed reflect their
gravitational potentials.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, To appear in 1 Aug 1998 ApJ (heavily revised
version of original preprint
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