Work

Consequences of Gravitational Radiation Recoil

Year: 2004

Type: article

Abstract: Coalescing binary black holes experience an impulsive kick from anisotropic emission of gravitational waves. Recoil velocities are sufficient to eject most coalescing black holes from dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, which may explain the apparent absence of massive black holes in these systems. Ejection from giant elliptical galaxies would be rare, but coalescing black holes are displaced from the center and fall back on a timescale of order the half-mass crossing time. Displacement of the black holes transfers energy to the stars in the nucleus and can convert a steep density cusp into a core. Radiation recoil calls into question models that grow supermassive black holes from hierarchical mergers of stellar-mass precursors.

Source: The Astrophysical Journal

DOI: 10.1086/421551

Authors: David Merritt, Milo Milosavljevi, Marc Favata, Scott A. Hughes, Daniel E. Holz

Institutions: Rochester Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Chicago

Language: English

Topic: Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research

Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Space Telescope Science Institute

Awards: Center for Cosmological Physics, Gravitation physics and relativistic astrophysics, Gravitational-Wave Astrophysics and Astronomy, ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF MASSIVE BLACK HOLES IN GALAXIES - (ATP 99), G8248377880