Scientific Seminars

Dynamics of binary supermassive black holes in gaseous environments

Giuseppe Lodato
Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita' Degli Studi di Milano

2014-02-18    14:00    Brera - Cupola Fiore

In this talk i will discuss several aspects related to the interaction of gaseous discs and a binary of supermassive black holes. Binary SMBHs are expected to form following the merger history of galaxies, but few of them have been detected, thus implying that the decay of the binary orbit is relatively efficent. Such systems, at small separations, are expected to be a major source of gravitational waves, as the two black holes merge and coalesce. Hydrodynamical processes are expected to play a significant role by (a) promoting the binary hardening through removal of angular momentum; (b) by providing important electromagnetic counterparts to the gravitational wave emission, and (c) by influencing the binary orbital element, such as the relative orientation of the black hole's spin. Here, I will discuss the progresses in our theoretical understanding of all such processes obtained in the last few years, also thanks to advanced numerical simulations.