Orbital and Radiative Properties of Wandering Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in the ASTRID Simulation

Abstract

Intermediate-Mass Black Holes (IMBHs) of $10^3-10^6{M}_{\odot }$ are commonly found at the center of dwarf galaxies. Simulations and observations convincingly show that a sizable population of IMBHs could wander off-center in galaxies. We use the cosmological simulation ASTRID to study the orbital and radiative properties of wandering IMBHs in massive galaxies at $z\sim 3$. We find that this population of black holes has large orbital inclinations ($60^{\circ }\pm 22^{\circ }$) with respect to the principal plane of the host. The eccentricity of their orbits is also significant ($0.6\pm 0.2$) and decreases with time. Wandering IMBHs undergo spikes of accretion activity around the pericenter of their orbits, with rates $10^{-3}-10^{-5}$ times the Eddington rate and a median accretion duty cycle of $\sim 12\%$. Their typical spectral energy distribution peaks in the infrared at $\sim 11\mu \mathrm{m}$ rest-frame. Assuming a standard value of $10\%$ for the matter-to-energy radiative efficiency, IMBHs reach $2-10$ keV X-ray luminosities $>10^{37}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ for $\sim 10\%$ of the time. This luminosity corresponds to fluxes $>10^{-15}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$ within $10$ Mpc. They could be challenging to detect because of competing emissions from X-ray binaries and the interstellar medium. X-ray luminosities $>10^{41}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, in the hyper-luminous X-ray sources (HLXs) regime, are reached by $\sim 7\%$ of the IMBHs. These findings suggest that HLXs are a small subset of the wandering IMBH population, which is characterized by luminosities $10^3-10^4$ times fainter. Dedicated surveys are needed to assess the demographics of this missing population of black holes.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS. This is the final version of the manuscript. 9 pages, 7 figures

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