Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/155370

Title

A radio Census of binary supermassive black holes

Author(s)

Burke-Spolaor, S.

Abstract

Using archival Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data for 3114 radio-luminous active galactic nuclei, we searched for binary supermassive black holes using a radio spectral index mapping technique which targets spatially resolved, double radio-emitting nuclei. Only one source was detected as a double nucleus. This result is compared with a cosmological merger rate model and interpreted in terms of (1) implications for post-merger time-scales for centralization of the two black holes, (2) implications for the possibility of ‘stalled’ systems and (3) the relationship of radio activity in nuclei to mergers. Our analysis suggests that binary pair evolution of supermassive black holes (both of masses ≥108 M⊙) spends less than 500 Myr in progression from the merging of galactic stellar cores to within the purported stalling radius for supermassive black hole pairs. The data show no evidence for an excess of stalled binary systems at small separations. We see circumstantial evidence that the relative state of radio emission between paired supermassive black holes is correlated within orbital separations of 2.5 kpc.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing

Source

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 410, no. 4 (Feb 2011), pp. 2113-2122

Publication year

2011

FOR Code(s)

0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences

Keyword(s)

Active galaxies;  Analytical methods;  Gravitational waves;  Radio continuum

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing

ISSN

0035-8711

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.17586.x

Copyright

Copyright © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation copyright © 2010 RAS.

Peer reviewed