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Recoiling black holes: Prospects for detection and implications of spin alignment

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Blecha, L 
Kelley, LZ 
Torrey, P 
Vogelsberger, M 

Abstract

Supermassive black hole (BH) mergers produce powerful gravitational wave emission. Asymmetry in this emission imparts a recoil kick to the merged BH, which can eject the BH from its host galaxy altogether. Recoiling BHs could be observed as offset active galactic nuclei (AGN). Several candidates have been identified, but systematic searches have been hampered by large uncertainties regarding their observability. By extracting merging BHs and host galaxy properties from the Illustris cosmological simulations, we have developed a comprehensive model for recoiling AGN. Here, for the first time, we model the effects of BH spin alignment and recoil dynamics based on the gas richness of host galaxies.We predict that if BH spins are not highly aligned, seeing-limited observations could resolve offset AGN, making them promising targets for all-sky surveys. For randomly oriented spins, ≲10 spatially offset AGN may be detectable in Hubble Space Telescope-Cosmological Evolution Survey, and > 10 3 could be found with the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS), the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), Euclid, and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). Nearly a thousand velocity offset AGN are predicted within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) footprint; the rarity of large broad-line offsets among SDSS quasars is likely due in part to selection effects but suggests that spin alignment plays a role in suppressing recoils. None the less, in our most physically motivated model where alignment occurs only in gas-rich mergers, hundreds of offset AGN should be found in all-sky surveys. Our findings strongly motivate a dedicated search for recoiling AGN.

Description

Keywords

accretion, accretion discs, black hole physics, gravitational waves, hydrodynamics, galaxies: active, galaxies: interactions

Journal Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0035-8711
1365-2966

Volume Title

456

Publisher

Oxford University Press
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/L000725/1)
European Research Council (638707)
LB acknowledges support provided by NASA through Einstein Fellowship grant PF2-130093. LH acknowledges support from NASA grant NNX12AC67G and NSF grant AST-1312095. VS acknowledges support through the European Research Council through ERC-StG grant EXAGAL-308037.