Direct<i>N</i>-body simulation of the Galactic centre

Panamarev, Taras; Just, A.; Spurzem, Rainer; Berczik, Peter; Wang, Long; Sedda, Manuel Arca

doi:10.1093/mnras/stz208

Cited by 60 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 112 publications

(126 reference statements)

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“…As this initial BH population undergoes mass segregation (Bahcall & Wolf 1977;Panamarev et al 2019), its mass distribution will vary with distance from the SMBH. We take into account this mass segregation in the spatial distribution of BHs.…”

Section: Monte Carlo Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

AGN Disks Harden the Mass Distribution of Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers

Yang

Bartos

Haiman

et al. 2019

ApJ

167

125

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The growing number of stellar-mass binary black hole mergers discovered by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are starting to constrain the binaries' origin and environment. However, we still lack sufficiently accurate modeling of binary formation channels to obtain strong constraints, or to identify sub-populations. One promising formation mechanism that could result in different black hole properties is binaries merging within the accretion disks of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Here we show that the black holes' orbital alignment with the AGN disks preferentially selects heavier black holes. We carry out Monte Carlo simulations of orbital alignment with AGN disks, and find that AGNs harden the initial black hole mass function. Assuming an initial power law mass distribution M −β bh , we find that the power law index changes by ∆β ∼ 1.3, resulting in a more top-heavy population of merging black holes. This change is independent of the mass of, and accretion rate onto, the supermassive black hole in the center of the AGN. Our simulations predict an AGN-assisted merger rate of ∼ 4 Gpc −3 yr −1 . With its hardened mass spectra, the AGN channel could be responsible for 10 − 50% of gravitational-wave detections.

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Section: Monte Carlo Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

AGN Disks Harden the Mass Distribution of Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers

Yang

Bartos

Haiman

et al. 2019

ApJ

167

125

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“…stars that form in the same protostellar cloud and shares a common (stel-lar+dynamical) evolution. Indeed, although this channel is poorly explored from a theoretical and numerical perspective, with a few notable exceptions (see for instance Stephan et al 2016;Panamarev et al 2019;Naoz et al 2018;Stephan et al 2019), observations of the Galactic Centre provided recently clues on the possible binariety of several stars inside the inner 0.1 pc (Ott et al 1999;Pfuhl et al 2014) or among the so called S-stars (Jia et al 2019).…”

Section: In-situ Scenariomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A powerful way to test these predictions is via N -body simulations. Unfortunately, simulations that account for different stellar components are extremely expensive from the computational point of view and became affordable only recently, although they still rely on several simplified approximations (see for instance Arca-Sedda & Gualandris 2018; Abbate et al 2018;Baumgardt et al 2018;Panamarev et al 2019).…”

Section: In-situ Scenariomentioning

confidence: 99%

Birth, Life, and Death of Black Hole Binaries around Supermassive Black Holes: Dynamical Evolution of Gravitational Wave Sources

Sedda¹

2020

ApJ

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In this paper, we explore the mechanisms that regulate the formation and evolution of stellar black hole binaries (BHBs) around supermassive black holes (SMBHs). We show that dynamical interactions can efficiently drive "in-situ" BHB formation if the SMBH is surrounded by a massive nuclear cluster (NC), while orbitally segregated star clusters can replenish the BHB reservoir in SMBH-dominated nuclei. We discuss how the combined action of stellar hardening and mass segregation sculpts the BHB orbital properties. We use direct N-body simulations including post-Newtonian corrections up to 2.5 order to study the BHB-SMBH interplay, showing that the Kozai-Lidov mechanism plays a crucial role in shortening binaries lifetime. We find that the merging probability weakly depends on the SMBH mass in the 10 6 − 10 9 M mass range, leading to a merger rate Γ 3 − 8 yr −1 Gpc −3 at redshift zero. Nearly 40% of the mergers have masses in the "BH mass gap", 50 − 140 M , thus indicating that galactic nuclei are ideal places to form BHs in this mass range. We argue that gravitational wave (GW) sources with components mass m 1 > 40 M and m 2 < 30 M would represent a strong indicator of a galactic nuclei origin. The majority of these mergers could be multiband GW sources in the local Universe: nearly 40% might be seen by LISA as eccentric sources and, a few years later, as circular sources by LIGO and the Einstein Telescope, making decihertz observatories like DECIGO unique instruments to bridge the observations during the binary inspiral.

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“…The enrichment in BHs typical of this class of stellar systems is due to a variety of factors. The large escape velocities increase the probability to retain BHs, whereas mass segregation naturally causes a drift of the BHs towards the innermost galactic regions [29,34,59,85,165,201,296]. The high densities regulate both BBHs formation [178,241,314], hardening [276] and ionization [199,200,243,292] via dynamical encounters.…”

Section: Intermediate-and Stellar-mass Black Holes In Galactic Nucleimentioning

confidence: 99%

The missing link in gravitational-wave astronomy: discoveries waiting in the decihertz range

Sedda

Berry

Jani

et al. 2020

Class. Quantum Grav.

Self Cite

137

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The gravitational-wave astronomical revolution began in 2015 with LIGO's observation of the coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. Over the coming decades, ground-based detectors like LIGO will extend their reach, discovering thousands of stellar-mass binaries. In the 2030s, the space-based LISA will enable gravitational-wave observations of the massive black holes in galactic centres. Between LISA and groundbased observatories lies the unexplored decihertz gravitational-wave frequency band. Here, we propose a Decihertz Observatory to cover this band, and complement observations made by other gravitational-wave observatories. The decihertz band is uniquely suited to observation of intermediate-mass (∼ 10 2-10 4 M) black holes, which may form the missing link between stellar-mass and massive black holes, offering a unique opportunity to measure their properties. Decihertz observations will be able to detect stellar-mass binaries days to years before they merge and are observed by ground-based detectors, providing early warning of nearby binary neutron star mergers, and enabling measurements of the eccentricity of binary black holes, providing revealing insights into their formation. Observing decihertz gravitational-waves also opens the possibility of testing fundamental physics in a new laboratory, permitting unique tests of general relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics. Overall, a Decihertz Observatory will answer key questions about how black holes form and evolve across cosmic time, open new avenues for multimessenger astronomy, and advance our understanding of gravitation, particle physics and cosmology.

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DirectN-body simulation of the Galactic centre

Cited by 60 publications

References 112 publications

AGN Disks Harden the Mass Distribution of Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers

AGN Disks Harden the Mass Distribution of Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers

Birth, Life, and Death of Black Hole Binaries around Supermassive Black Holes: Dynamical Evolution of Gravitational Wave Sources

The missing link in gravitational-wave astronomy: discoveries waiting in the decihertz range

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