Unveiling the hosts of parsec-scale massive black hole binaries: morphology and electromagnetic signatures

Abstract

Parsec-scale massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) are expected to form in hierarchical models of structure formation. Even though different observational strategies have been designed to detect these systems, a theoretical study is a further guide for their search and identification. In this work, we investigate the hosts properties and the electromagnetic signatures of massive black holes gravitationally bound on parsec-scales with primary mass $>10^7{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$. For that, we construct a full-sky lightcone by the use of the semi-analytical model L-Galaxies in which physically motivated prescriptions for the formation and evolution of MBHBs have been included. Our predictions show that the large majority of the MBHBs are placed either in spiral galaxies with a classical bulge structure or in elliptical galaxies. Besides, the scaling relations followed by MBHBs are indistinguishable from the ones of single massive black holes. We find that the occupation fraction of parsec-scale MBHBs reaches up to $\sim 50\%$ in galaxies with ${\mathrm{M}}_{\mathrm{stellar}}>10^{11}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ and drops below 10\% for ${\mathrm{M}}_{\mathrm{stellar}}<10^{11}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$. Our model anticipates that the majority of parsec-scale MBHBs are unequal mass systems and lie at $z\sim 0.5$, with $\sim 20$ objects per $\mathrm{de}{\mathrm{g}}^2$ in the sky. However, most of these systems are inactive, and only $1-0.1$ objects per $\mathrm{de}{\mathrm{g}}^2$ have an electromagnetic counterpart with a bolometric luminosity in excess of $10^{43}$ erg/s. Very luminous phases of parsec-scale MBHBs are more common at $z>1$ but the number of binaries per $\mathrm{de}{\mathrm{g}}^2$ is $\lesssim 0.01$ at ${\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{bol}}>10^{45}erg/s$.

arXiv comment19 pages, 16 Figures, Accepted by MNRAS

References in corpus (96)

• Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parameters
• The cosmological simulation code GADGET-2
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• Energy input from quasars regulates the growth and activity of black holes and their host galaxies
• Populating a cluster of galaxies - I. Results at z=0
• TianQin: a space-borne gravitational wave detector
• Central Masses and Broad-Line Region Sizes of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. A Homogeneous Analysis of a Large Reverberation-Mapping Database
• On the Black Hole Mass - Bulge Mass Relation
• Local Supermassive Black Holes, Relics of Active Galactic Nuclei and the X-ray Background
• Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships
• From dwarf spheroidals to cDs: Simulating the galaxy population in a LCDM cosmology
• An Observational Determination of the Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function
• The Assembly and Merging History of Supermassive Black Holes in Hierarchical Models of Galaxy Formation
• Modeling Luminosity-Dependent Galaxy Clustering Through Cosmic Time
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search For An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• The international pulsar timing array project: using pulsars as a gravitational wave detector
• Galaxy formation in the Planck Cosmology - I. Matching the observed evolution of star formation rates, colours and stellar masses
• Linking halo mass to galaxy luminosity
• Taiji Program: Gravitational-Wave Sources
• Structural Properties of Pseudo-Bulges, Classical Bulges and Elliptical Galaxies: an SDSS Perspective
• How Do Disks Survive Mergers?
• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• How Do Massive Black Holes Get Their Gas?
• High-precision timing of 42 millisecond pulsars with the European Pulsar Timing Array
• A Compact Supermassive Binary Black Hole System
• Black Hole Masses and Eddington Ratios at 0.3<z<4
• A massive binary black-hole system in OJ287 and a test of general relativity
• The Recent and Continuing Assembly of Field Ellipticals by Red Mergers
• Massive black hole binary mergers within sub-pc scale gas discs
• On the evidence for a common-spectrum process in the search for the nanohertz gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• The Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function at z = 0-7
• New Relationships between Galaxy Properties and Host Halo Mass, and the Role of Feedbacks in Galaxy Formation
• The Role of Gas in the Merging of Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei. II. Black Hole Merging in a Clumpy Disk
• A systematic search for close supermassive black hole binaries in the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey
• Low-frequency gravitational radiation from coalescing massive black hole binaries in hierarchical cosmologies
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: Second data release
• False periodicities in quasar time-domain surveys
• Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: Inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search
• Gravitational waves from resolvable massive black hole binary systems and observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• The Assembly of Supermassive Black Holes at High Redshifts
• Supermassive black hole binaries in gaseous and stellar circumnuclear discs: orbital dynamics and gas accretion
• Clustering of Galaxies in a Hierarchical Universe: II. Evolution to High Redshift
• The Quest for Dual and Binary Supermassive Black Holes: A Multi-Messenger View
• A Population of Short-Period Variable Quasars from PTF as Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidates
• The Role of Gas in the Merging of Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei. I. Black Hole Merging in a Spherical Gas Cloud
• Understanding Dual AGN Activation in the Nearby Universe
• Expected properties of the first gravitational wave signal detected with pulsar timing arrays
• The Redshift Evolution of Wet, Dry, and Mixed Galaxy Mergers from Close Galaxy Pairs in the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey
• A Large Systematic Search for Recoiling and Close Supermassive Binary Black Holes
• Massive Black Hole Binary Mergers in Dynamical Galactic Environments
• The dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries - II. Self-consistent N-body integrations
• Red Mergers and the Assembly of Massive Elliptical Galaxies: the Fundamental Plane and its Projections
• Interaction of massive black hole binaries with their stellar environment: I. Ejection of hypervelocity stars
• Predicting the direction of the final spin from the coalescence of two black holes
• Limiting eccentricity of sub-parsec massive black hole binaries surrounded by self-gravitating gas discs
• Growth and activity of black holes in galaxy mergers with varying mass ratios
• Linking the spin evolution of massive black holes to galaxy kinematics
• Massive binary black holes in galactic nuclei and their path to coalescence
• Quasars Are Not Light-Bulbs: Testing Models of Quasar Lifetimes with the Observed Eddington Ratio Distribution
• Post-Newtonian Evolution of Massive Black Hole Triplets in Galactic Nuclei: IV. Implications for LISA
• Scattering experiments meet N-body I: a practical recipe for the evolution of massive black hole binaries in stellar environments
• One simulation to fit them all - changing the background parameters of a cosmological N-body simulation
• A systematic search for massive black hole binaries in SDSS spectroscopic sample
• Multimessenger astronomy with pulsar timing and X-ray observations of massive black hole binaries
• Supermassive black holes and their host spheroids II. The red and blue sequence in the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}-M_{\ast ,\mathrm{sph}}$ diagram
• Where do Wet, Dry, and Mixed Galaxy Mergers Occur? A Study of the Environments of Close Galaxy Pairs in the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey
• Kiloparsec-scale Spatial Offsets in Double-peaked Narrow-line Active Galactic Nuclei. I. Markers for Selection of Compelling Dual Active Galactic Nucleus Candidates
• Modeling the cosmological co-evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies: I. BH scaling relations and the AGN luminosity function
• Black hole mergers from dwarf to massive galaxies with the NewHorizon and Horizon-AGN simulations
• SDSS J092712.65+294344.0: Recoiling Black Hole or A Sub-parsec Binary Candidate?
• Single Sources in the Low-Frequency Gravitational Wave Sky: properties and time to detection by pulsar timing arrays
• Constraining sub-Parsec Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Quasars with Multi-Epoch Spectroscopy. I. The General Quasar Population
• Modeling the cosmological co-evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies: II. The clustering of quasars and their dark environment
• Density-potential pairs for spherical stellar systems with Sersic light-profiles and (optional) power-law cores
• Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidates from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey
• Post-Newtonian evolution of massive black hole triplets in galactic nuclei -- II. Survey of the parameter space
• Massive BH Binaries as Periodically-Variable AGN
• The final-parsec problem in non-spherical galaxies revisited
• Electromagnetic counterparts of supermassive black hole binaries resolved by pulsar timing arrays
• Massive black hole evolution models confronting the n-Hz amplitude of the stochastic gravitational wave background
• From galactic nuclei to the halo outskirts: tracing supermassive black holes across cosmic history and environments
• A Systematic Search for Periodically Varying Quasars in Pan-STARRS1: An Extended Baseline Test in Medium Deep Survey Field MD09
• NANOGrav Constraints on Gravitational Wave Bursts with Memory
• Multi-messenger Time-domain Signatures Of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Search of sub-parsec massive binary black holes through line diagnosis
• The Host Galaxies of Radio-Loud AGN: The Black Hole--Galaxy Connection
• The build-up of pseudobulges in a hierarchical universe
• Discovery of a Candidate Binary Supermassive Black Hole in a Periodic Quasar from Circumbinary Accretion Variability
• Linking the fate of massive black hole binaries to the active galactic nuclei luminosity function
• Circumbinary disc self-gravity governing supermassive black hole binary mergers
• J-PLUS: Synthetic galaxy catalogues with emission lines for photometric surveys
• On the relation between the mass of Compact Massive Objects and their host galaxies
• Associating Host Galaxy Candidates to Massive Black Hole Binaries resolved by Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Targeting supermassive black hole binaries and gravitational wave sources for the pulsar timing array
• pinta: The uGMRT Data Processing Pipeline for the Indian Pulsar Timing Array

Cited by in corpus (9)

• UGC 4211: A Confirmed Dual Active Galactic Nucleus in the Local Universe at 230 pc Nuclear Separation
• Demographics of Tidal Disruption Events with L-Galaxies: I. Volumetric TDE rates and the abundance of Nuclear Star Clusters
• Resolving the nano-Hz gravitational wave sky: the detectability of eccentric binaries with PTA experiments
• Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations I: Unique Galaxy Morphologies in Imaging
• Hot, cold, and multi-component accretion flows around supermassive black hole binaries
• Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations II: Unique Stellar Kinematics in Integral Field Unit Spectroscopy
• Ultra-Low Frequency Gravitational Waves from Massive Clusters at z~1
• Overmassive and Undermassive Massive Black Holes: The Role of Environment and Gravitational-Wave Recoils
• A Population Study for Searching Supermassive Binary Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei: Continuum Spectral Features and Periodic Variabilities