GSFC: Simulation Sheds Light on Spiraling Supermassive Black Holes

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GSFC: Simulation Sheds Light on Spiraling Supermassive Black Holes

Post by bystander » Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:12 pm

New Simulation Sheds Light on Spiraling Supermassive Black Holes
NASA | Goddard | 2018 Oct 02
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A new model is bringing scientists a step closer to understanding the kinds of light signals produced when two supermassive black holes, which are millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, spiral toward a collision. For the first time, a new computer simulation that fully incorporates the physical effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity shows that gas in such systems will glow predominantly in ultraviolet and X-ray light.

Just about every galaxy the size of our own Milky Way or larger contains a monster black hole at its center. Observations show galaxy mergers occur frequently in the universe, but so far no one has seen a merger of these giant black holes.

“We know galaxies with central supermassive black holes combine all the time in the universe, yet we only see a small fraction of galaxies with two of them near their centers,” said Scott Noble, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The pairs we do see aren’t emitting strong gravitational-wave signals because they’re too far away from each other. Our goal is to identify — with light alone — even closer pairs from which gravitational-wave signals may be detected in the future.” ...

Computer Simulation Follows Light to Supermassive Black Holes
Rochester Institute of Technology | 2018 Oct 02

Electromagnetic Emission from Supermassive Binary Black Holes Approaching Merger ~ Stéphane d’Ascoli et al
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