EM counterparts of recoiling black holes: general relativistic simulations of non-Keplerian discs

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of a circumbinary disc that responds to the loss of mass and to the recoil velocity of the black hole produced by the merger of a binary system of supermassive black holes. We perform the first two-dimensional general relativistic hydrodynamics simulations of \textit{extended} non-Keplerian discs and employ a new technique to construct a "shock detector", thus determining the precise location of the shocks produced in the accreting disc by the recoiling black hole. In this way we can study how the properties of the system, such as the spin, mass and recoil velocity of the black hole, affect the mass accretion rate and are imprinted on the electromagnetic emission from these sources. We argue that the estimates of the bremsstrahlung luminosity computed without properly taking into account the radiation transfer yield cooling times that are unrealistically short. At the same time we show, through an approximation based on the relativistic isothermal evolution, that the luminosity produced can reach a peak value above $L\simeq 10^{43}erg/s$ at about $\sim 30\mathrm{d}$ after the merger of a binary with total mass $M\simeq 10^6{M}_{\odot }$ and persist for several days at values which are a factor of a few smaller. If confirmed by more sophisticated calculations such a signal could indeed lead to an electromagnetic counterpart of the merger of binary black-hole system.

17 pages, 11 figures, accepted by A&A, movies available at http://numrel.aei.mpg.de/Visualisations/Archive/BinaryBlackHoles/EMCounterparts/EMCounterparts.html

References in corpus (13)

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• A Compact Supermassive Binary Black Hole System
• ECHO: an Eulerian Conservative High Order scheme for general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics and magnetodynamics
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• Pre-Merger Localization of Gravitational-Wave Standard Sirens With LISA: Triggered Search for an Electromagnetic Counterpart
• Binary black holes' effects on electromagnetic fields
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• Dynamics of magnetized relativistic tori oscillating around black holes
• Modelling the final state from binary black-hole coalescences
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• Identifying Decaying Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from their Variable Electromagnetic Emission
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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Binary black hole mergers in gaseous disks: Simulations in general relativity
• Accretion disks around binary black holes of unequal mass: GRMHD simulations of postdecoupling and merger
• Minidisks in Binary Black Hole Accretion
• Prompt Electromagnetic Transients from Binary Black Hole Mergers
• Recoiling Supermassive Black Holes: a search in the Nearby Universe
• Papaloizou-Pringle instability suppression by the magnetorotational instability in relativistic accretion discs
• Head-on collisions of unequal mass black holes in D=5 dimensions
• Systematics of black hole binary inspiral kicks and the slowness approximation
• Analytical solutions for weak black hole kicks