A VERY CLOSE BINARY BLACK HOLE IN A GIANT ELLIPTICAL GALAXY 3C 66B AND ITS BLACK HOLE MERGER

作者：Iguchi Satoru^*; Okuda Takeshi; Sudou Hiroshi

来源：Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2010, 724(2): L166-L170.

DOI：10.1088/2041-8205/724/2/L166

• black hole physics
• galaxies: active
• galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD
• galaxies: formation
• galaxies: individual (3C 66B)

Recent observational results provide possible evidence that binary black holes (BBHs) exist in the center of giant galaxies and may merge to form a supermassive black hole in the process of their evolution. We first detected a periodic flux variation on a cycle of 93 +/- 1 days from the 3 mm monitor observations of a giant elliptical galaxy 3C 66B for which an orbital motion with a period of 1.05 +/- 0.03 yr had been already observed. The detected signal period being shorter than the orbital period can be explained by taking into consideration the Doppler-shifted modulation due to the orbital motion of a BBH. Assuming that the BBH has a circular orbit and that the jet axis is parallel to the binary angular momentum, our observational results demonstrate the presence of a very close BBH that has a binary orbit with an orbital period of 1.05 +/- 0.03 yr, an orbital radius of (3.9 +/- 1.0) x 10(-3) pc, an orbital separation of (6.1(-0.9)(+1.0)) x 10(-3) pc, a larger black hole mass of (1.2(-0.2)(+60.5)) x 10(2) yr provides evidence for the occurrence of black hole mergers. This Letter will demonstrate the interesting possibility of black hole collisions to form a supermassive black hole in the process of evolution, one of the most spectacular natural phenomena in the universe.

• 出版日期2010-12-1
• 单位中国科学院国家天文台