RABBITS -- I. The crucial role of nuclear star formation in driving the coalescence of supermassive black hole binaries

Abstract

In this study of the `Resolving supermAssive Black hole Binaries In galacTic hydrodynamical Simulations' (RABBITS) series, we focus on the hardening and coalescing process of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries in galaxy mergers. For simulations including different galaxy formation processes (i.e. gas cooling, star formation, SMBH accretion, stellar and AGN feedback), we systematically control the effect of stochastic eccentricity by fixing it to similar values during the SMBH hardening phase. We find a strong correlation between the SMBH merger time-scales and the presence of nuclear star formation. Throughout the galaxy merging process, gas condenses at the centre due to cooling and tidal torques, leading to nuclear star formation. These recently formed stars, which inherit low angular momenta from the gas, contribute to the loss cone and assist in the SMBH hardening via three-body interactions. Compared to non-radiative hydrodynamical runs, the SMBH merger time-scales measured from the runs including cooling, stellar and SMBH physical processes tend to be shortened by a factor of $\sim 1.7$. After fixing the eccentricity to the range of $e\sim 0.6$--$0.8$ during the hardening phase, the simulations with AGN feedback reveal merger time-scales of $\sim 100$--$500$ Myr for disc mergers and $\sim 1$--$2$ Gyr for elliptical mergers. With a semi-analytical approach, we find that the torque interaction between the binary and its circumbinary disc has minimal impact on the shrinking of the binary orbit in our retrograde galaxy merger. Our results are useful in improving the modelling of SMBH merger time-scales and gravitational wave event rates.

arXiv comment18 pages, 8 main + 3 appendix figures, renamed as RABBITS I, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (99)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• The cosmological simulation code GADGET-2
• The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package
• Modeling feedback from stars and black holes in galaxy mergers
• TianQin: a space-borne gravitational wave detector
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Simulating galaxy formation with black hole driven thermal and kinetic feedback
• Search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals
• The effect of photo-ionization on the cooling rates of enriched, astrophysical plasmas
• A universal angular momentum profile for galactic halos
• Improving convergence in smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations without pairing instability
• Formation of Galactic Nuclei
• Taiji Program: Gravitational-Wave Sources
• Dynamical Friction in a Gaseous Medium
• The dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries - I. Hardening in a fixed stellar background
• Statistical Properties of Collisionless Equal- and Unequal-Mass Merger Remnants of Disk Galaxies
• Simulating cosmic structure formation with the GADGET-4 code
• Accretion during the merger of supermassive black holes
• An Eccentric Circumbinary Accretion Disk and the Detection of Binary Massive Black Holes
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• Binary Black Hole Accretion From a Circumbinary Disk: Gas Dynamics Inside the Central Cavity
• The Kozai Mechanism and the Evolution of Binary Supermassive Black Holes
• Rapid Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Galaxy Mergers with Gas
• The Role of Gas in the Merging of Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei. II. Black Hole Merging in a Clumpy Disk
• Efficient Merger of Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Non-Axisymmetric Galaxies
• The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves
• Towards a more realistic population of bright spiral galaxies in cosmological simulations
• The Role of Gas in the Merging of Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei. I. Black Hole Merging in a Spherical Gas Cloud
• Feedback and metal enrichment in cosmological SPH simulations - II. A multiphase model with supernova energy feedback
• Hydrodynamics of circumbinary accretion: Angular momentum transfer and binary orbital evolution
• Mass Deficits, Stalling Radii, and the Merger Histories of Elliptical Galaxies
• The dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries - II. Self-consistent N-body integrations
• Efficient Merger of Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Merging Galaxies
• Chaotic Loss Cones, Black Hole Fueling and the M-Sigma Relation
• Interaction of massive black hole binaries with their stellar environment: I. Ejection of hypervelocity stars
• Feedback and metal enrichment in cosmological SPH simulations I. A model for chemical enrichment
• Viscous Hydrodynamics Simulations of Circumbinary Accretion Discs: Variability, Quasi-Steady State, and Angular Momentum Transfer
• Fast coalescence of massive black hole binaries from mergers of galactic nuclei: implications for low-frequency gravitational-wave astrophysics
• Dynamics of triple black hole systems in hierarchically merging massive galaxies
• A Post-Newtonian diagnostic of quasi-equilibrium binary configurations of compact objects
• Evolution of binary black holes in self gravitating discs: dissecting the torques
• Galaxy Cores as Relics of Black Hole Mergers
• Binary Black Hole Accretion Flows in Merged Galactic Nuclei
• Post-Newtonian Evolution of Massive Black Hole Triplets in Galactic Nuclei: IV. Implications for LISA
• Hydrodynamic Torques in Circumbinary Accretion Disks
• On the orbital evolution of supermassive black hole binaries with circumbinary accretion discs
• SPHGal: Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics with improved accuracy for Galaxy simulations
• Circumbinary Accretion from Finite and Infinite Disks
• Hydrodynamics of galaxy mergers with supermassive black holes: is there a last parsec problem ?
• Gas-driven inspiral of binaries in thin accretion disks
• LISA double black holes: Dynamics in gaseous nuclear discs
• Orbital Evolution of Equal-mass Eccentric Binaries due to a Gas Disk: Eccentric Inspirals and Circular Outspirals
• The Final Parsec Problem
• Evolution of Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Long-Term Evolution of Massive Black Hole Binaries. II. Binary Evolution in Low-Density Galaxies
• Equilibrium eccentricity of accreting binaries
• Interactions between multiple supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei: a solution to the final parsec problem
• Long-Term Evolution of Massive Black Hole Binaries. III. Binary Evolution in Collisional Nuclei
• Swift coalescence of supermassive black holes in cosmological mergers of massive galaxies
• Orbital Evolution of Binaries in Circumbinary Disks
• Brownian Motion of a Massive Binary
• Galaxy Rotation and Rapid Supermassive Black Hole Binary Coalescence
• Formation of galactic nuclei with multiple supermassive black holes at high redshifts
• Post-Newtonian dynamical modeling of supermassive black holes in galactic-scale simulations
• Massive black hole binary eccentricity in rotating stellar systems
• The formation of extremely diffuse galaxy cores by merging supermassive black holes
• A Survey of Disc Thickness and Viscosity in Circumbinary Accretion: Binary Evolution, Variability, and Disc Morphology
• Evolution of Massive Blackhole Triples I -- Equal-mass binary-single systems
• Massive perturbers and the efficient merger of binary massive black holes
• The Pairing of Accreting Massive Black Holes in Multiphase Circumnuclear Disks: the Interplay between Radiative Cooling, Star Formation, and Feedback Processes
• Resolving massive black hole binaries evolution via adaptive particle-splitting
• Eccentricity evolution of massive black hole binaries from formation to coalescence
• Effects of Wandering on the Coalescence of Black Hole Binaries in Galactic Centers
• MSTAR -- a fast parallelised algorithmically regularised integrator with minimum spanning tree coordinates
• The simultaneous formation of cored, tangentially biased, and kinematically decoupled centers in massive early-type galaxies
• AGN feedback, quiescence and CGM metal enrichment in early-type galaxies
• Brownian motion of massive black hole binaries and the final parsec problem
• Formation of the largest galactic cores through binary scouring and gravitational wave recoil
• Signatures of the Many Supermassive Black Hole Mergers in a Cosmologically Forming Massive Early-Type Galaxy
• Galaxy Rotation and Supermassive Black Hole Binary Evolution
• The competing effect of gas and stars in massive black hole binaries evolution
• Modeling for Stellar Feedback in Galaxy Formation Simulations
• Lyman-αabsorption beyond the disk of simulated spiral galaxies
• Supermassive black holes coalescence mediated by massive perturbers: implications for gravitational waves emission and nuclear cluster formation
• Resolving the Complex Evolution of a Supermassive Black Hole Triplet in a Cosmological Simulation
• Defeating stochasticity: coalescence timescales of massive black holes in galaxy mergers
• Circumbinary disc self-gravity governing supermassive black hole binary mergers
• The importance of live binary evolution in numerical simulations of binaries embedded in circumbinary discs
• The two phases of core formation -- orbital evolution in the centres of ellipticals with supermassive black hole binaries
• KETJU -- resolving small-scale supermassive black hole dynamics in GADGET-4
• Star cluster disruption by a massive black hole binary
• Eccentric Binaries in Retrograde Disks
• Modelling the accretion and feedback of supermassive black hole binaries in gas-rich galaxy mergers

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Gravitational Wave Astronomy With TianQin
• The supermassive black hole merger driven evolution of high-redshift red nuggets into present-day cored early-type galaxies
• RABBITS -- II. The impact of AGN feedback on coalescing supermassive black holes in disc and elliptical galaxy mergers
• Identifying supermassive black hole recoil in elliptical galaxies
• Tracking on-the-fly massive black hole binary evolution and coalescence in galaxy simulations: RAMCOAL
• First Light And Reionization Epoch Simulations (FLARES) -- XIX: Supermassive black hole mergers in the early Universe and their environmental dependence
• Dynamical evolution timescales for the supermassive black hole system in the galaxy NGC 7727 (Arp 222)
• Rapid sinking and efficient mergers of supermassive black holes in compact high-redshift galaxies