The quest for the largest depleted galaxy core: supermassive black hole binaries and stalled in-falling satellites

Abstract

Partially-depleted cores are practically ubiquitous in luminous early-type galaxies (M${}_B\lesssim -$20.5 mag), and typically smaller than 1 kpc. In one popular scenario, supermassive black hole binaries --- established during dry (i.e. gas-poor) galaxy mergers --- kick out the stars from a galaxy's central region via three-body interactions. Here, this "binary black hole scouring scenario" is probed at its extremes by investigating the two galaxies reported to have the largest partially-depleted cores found to date: 2MASX~J09194427+5622012 and 2MASX~J17222717+3207571 (the brightest galaxy in Abell~2261). We have fit these galaxy's two-dimensional light distribution using the core-Sérsic model, and found that the former galaxy has a core-Sérsic break radius $R_{b,cS}=0.55$~kpc, three times smaller than the published value. We use this galaxy to caution that other reportedly large break radii may too have been over-estimated if they were derived using the "sharp-transition" (inner core)-to-(outer Sérsic) model. In the case of 2MASX~J17222717+3207571, we obtain $R_{b,cS}=3.6$~kpc. While we confirm that this is the biggest known partially-depleted core of any galaxy, we stress that it is larger than expected from the evolution of supermassive black hole binaries --- unless one invokes substantial gravitational-wave-induced (black hole)-recoil events. Given the presence of multiple nuclei located (in projection) within the core radius of this galaxy, we explored and found support for the alternative "stalled infalling perturber" core-formation scenario, in which this galaxy's core could have been excavated by the action of an infalling massive perturber.

arXiv commentPublished in: ApJ, 829, 81B, 2016

References in corpus (74)

• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• The hierarchical formation of the brightest cluster galaxies
• A fundamental plane of black hole activity
• The Photometric Performance and Calibration of the HST Advanced Camera For Surveys
• The First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Centers of Early-Type Galaxies with HST. IV. Central Parameter Relations
• Formation of Galactic Nuclei
• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VI. Isophotal Analysis and the Structure of Early-Type Galaxies
• The dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries - I. Hardening in a fixed stellar background
• HST photometry of dwarf elliptical galaxies in Coma, and an explanation for the alleged structural dichotomy between dwarf and bright elliptical galaxies
• Gravitational Waves Probe the Coalescence Rate of Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Evolution of massive binary black holes
• The Masses of Nuclear Black Holes in Luminous Elliptical Galaxies and Implications for the Space Density of the Most Massive Black Holes
• Ages and metallicities of early-type galaxies in the SDSS: new insight into the physical origin of the colour-magnitude and the Mg2-sigmaV relations
• Dark Halos: The Flattening of the Density Cusp by Dynamical Friction
• Consequences of gravitational radiation recoil
• Two ten-billion-solar-mass black holes at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies
• Supermassive recoil velocities for binary black-hole mergers with antialigned spins
• K and evolutionary corrections from UV to IR
• Does the Fornax dwarf spheroidal have a central cusp or core?
• A New Empirical Model for the Structural Analysis of Early-type Galaxies and a Critical Review of the Nuker Model
• The (black hole mass)-(host spheroid luminosity) relation at high and low masses, the quadratic growth of black holes, and intermediate-mass black hole candidates
• Ejection of Supermassive Black Holes from Galaxy Cores
• Evidence for a New Elliptical-Galaxy Paradigm: Sersic and Core Galaxies
• Mass Deficits, Stalling Radii, and the Merger Histories of Elliptical Galaxies
• An Over-Massive Black Hole in the Compact Lenticular Galaxy NGC1277
• Flat-Cored Dark Matter in Cuspy Clusters of Galaxies
• The tidal stripping of satellites
• Ellipticals with Kinematically-Distinct Cores: (V-I) Color Images with WFPC2
• On the estimation of galaxy structural parameters: the Sersic Model
• Dynamical friction in constant density cores: a failure of the Chandrasekhar formula
• Low-frequency gravitational waves from supermassive black holes
• Supermassive Black Hole Binary Evolution in Axisymmetric Galaxies: the final parsec problem is not a problem
• The final-parsec problem in the collisionless limit
• Core depletion from coalescing supermassive black holes
• Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of Brightest Cluster Galaxies
• Intracluster light and the extended stellar envelopes of cD galaxies: An analytical description
• Correlations Between Supermassive Black Holes, Velocity Dispersions, and Mass Deficits in Elliptical Galaxies with Cores
• Angular Momentum Transfer in Dark Matter Halos: Erasing the Cusp
• Core creation in galaxies and haloes via sinking massive objects
• The Supermassive Black Hole Mass - Spheroid Stellar Mass Relation for Sérsic and Core-Sérsic Galaxies
• Kinematics of Ten Early-Type Galaxies from HST and Ground-Based Spectroscopy
• The Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey. III. The Three-Component Structure of Nearby Elliptical Galaxies
• Core Formation by a Population of Massive Remnants
• The Final Parsec Problem
• Core Formation in Galactic Nuclei Due to Recoiling Black Holes
• Hypercompact Stellar Systems Around Recoiling Supermassive Black Holes
• An Energetic AGN Outburst Powered by a Rapidly Spinning Supermassive Black Hole or an Accreting Ultramassive Black Hole
• Nuclear Cusps and Cores in Early-type Galaxies As Relics of Binary Black Hole Mergers
• Depleted Galaxy Cores and Dynamical Black Hole Masses
• Depleted cores, multi-component fits, and structural parameter relations for luminous early-type galaxies
• A Brightest Cluster Galaxy with an Extremely Large Flat Core
• Formation of galactic nuclei with multiple supermassive black holes at high redshifts
• The formation of the brightest cluster galaxies in cosmological simulations: the case for AGN feedback
• Central Stellar Mass Deficits in the Bulges of Local Lenticular Galaxies, and the Connection with Compact z ~ 1.5 Galaxies
• The Luminosity Profiles of Brightest Cluster Galaxies
• Is the black hole in NGC1277 really over-massive?
• A Semi-Analytic dynamical friction model that reproduces core stalling
• On the hunt for ultramassive black holes in brightest cluster galaxies
• Beyond Ellipse(s): Accurately Modelling the Isophotal Structure of Galaxies with $Isofit$ and $Cmodel$
• Gravitational wave emission from binary supermassive black holes
• The Black Hole in the Compact, High-dispersion Galaxy NGC 1271
• The Brightest Cluster Galaxy in Abell 85: The Largest Core Known so far
• Sizing up Partially-Depleted Galaxy Cores
• The test for suppressed dynamical friction in a constant density core of dwarf galaxies
• A normal supermassive black hole in NGC 1277
• The connection between radio-loudness and central surface brightness profiles in optically-selected low-luminosity active galaxies
• Corrective effect of many-body interactions in dynamical friction
• Gravitational Encounters and the Evolution of Galactic Nuclei. II. Classical and Resonant Relaxation
• A Search for the Most Massive Galaxies. III. Global and Central Structure
• SUBARU and e-Merlin observations of NGC3718. Diaries of an SMBH recoil?
• GALFIT-CORSAIR: implementing the core-Sersic model into GALFIT
• Core shapes and orientations of core-Sersic galaxies
• The Abell 85 BCG: a nucleated, core-less galaxy

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Dynamical friction and the evolution of Supermassive Black hole Binaries: the final hundred-parsec problem
• Global torques and stochasticity as the drivers of massive black hole pairing in the young Universe
• TDCOSMO. IX. Systematic comparison between lens modelling software programs: time delay prediction for WGD 2038-4008
• A remarkably large depleted core in the Abell 2029 BCG IC 1101
• Formation of the largest galactic cores through binary scouring and gravitational wave recoil
• A Detection of the Environmental Dependence of the Sizes and Stellar Haloes of Massive Central Galaxies
• Formation channels of slowly rotating early-type galaxies
• Specific Frequencies and Luminosity Profiles of Cluster Galaxies and Intracluster Light in Abell 1689
• The MEGaN project I. Missing formation of massive nuclear clusters and tidal disruption events by star clusters - massive black hole interactions
• Reading the tea leaves in the $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$M_{\ast ,\mathrm{sph}}$ and $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$R_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{sph}}$ diagrams: dry and gaseous mergers with remnant angular momentum
• Potential Black Hole Seeding of the Spiral Galaxy NGC 4424 via an Infalling Star Cluster
• A Radio Relic and a Search for the Central Black Hole in the Abell 2261 Brightest Cluster Galaxy
• The parallelism between galaxy clusters and early-type galaxies: I. The light and mass profiles
• Galaxy Core Formation by Supermassive Black Hole Binaries: the Importance of Realistic Initial Conditions and Galaxy Morphology
• Identifying supermassive black hole recoil in elliptical galaxies
• Connecting traces of galaxy evolution: the missing core mass -- morphological fine structure relation
• Modelling dust rings in early-type galaxies through a sequence of radiative transfer simulations and 2D image fitting
• The most massive galaxies with large depleted cores: structural parameter relations and black hole masses