AsianScientist (Sep. 22, 2017) – In a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists in India and the US have discovered the closest ever binary supermassive black hole system, located about 400 million light-years from Earth.
Binary black holes (two black holes orbiting around each other) are fascinating objects that were only recently confirmed to exist based on detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO telescope in 2015. However, astrophysicists have long predicted the existence of a second class of binaries consisting of supermassive black holes, each having a mass upwards of one million times the mass of the Sun.
Single supermassive black holes are known to be present at the center of most galaxies, and since galaxies are observed to merge with other galaxies, it is possible to form gravitationally bound black hole pairs. Overtime, these two supermassive black holes would coalesce via the emission of gravitational waves.
In this study, Dr. Preeti Kharb and Dr. Dharam Vir Lal from the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Rsearch in India, and Professor David Merritt from the Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, have identified the closest ever binary supermassive black hole system in a spiral galaxy named NGC 7674, located about 400 million light-years from Earth.
The apparent separation of the two black holes in the binary system is less than one light-year. This is much less than the previous record holder, which was a black hole binary with a separation of about 24 light-years.
This discovery is very significant because it provides direct observational proof of the existence of close supermassive black hole binary systems inside galaxies, which are potential sources of gravitational waves.
The above binary system was detected using a technique called very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), in which separate radio telescopes around the world can work together as a single large telescope, achieving an angular resolution of milli- or microarcseconds—roughly ten million times the angular resolution of the human eye. Using VLBI techniques, two compact sources of radio emission were detected at the center of NGC 7674.
“The two radio sources have properties that are known to be associated with massive black holes that are accreting gas,” said Kharb, “This implies the presence of two black holes.”
The combined mass of the two black holes is roughly 40 million times the mass of the Sun. The researchers also estimated the orbital period of the binary to be about 100,000 years.
“Detection of a binary supermassive black hole in this galaxy also confirms a theoretical prediction that such binaries should be present in so-called Z-shaped radio sources,” Merritt stated. The term Z-shaped refers to the twisted morphology of the galaxy’s radio emission on much larger scales. This morphology is thought to result from the combined effects of the galaxy merger followed by the formation of the massive binary.
The article can be found at: Kharb et al. (2017) A Candidate Sub-Parsec Binary Black Hole in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7674.
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Source: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research; Photo: Shutterstock.
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