The Search for Signatures of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries (and the Remnants of those Mergers) in the Time Domain

在时域中寻找超大质量黑洞双星（以及这些合并的残余物）的签名

• 批准号: 1616566
• 负责人: Suvi Gezari
• 金额: $ 33.37万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1616566&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Search; Signatures; Supermassive; Black; Hole

Part 1Binary supermassive black holes (SMBHs) should be an inevitable consequence of the growth of massive galaxies through mergers, and the strongest source of gravitational waves in the universe. However, observational evidence for this fundamental phase of changes in galaxy and black hole has remained hard to find due to the small orbital separations of gravitationally bound SMBHs. In this program, the proposers will exploit a theoretically predicted signature of a SMBH binary: periodic changes of the object's brightness over time, caused by a mass accretion rate that is linked to the binary's orbital motion.Part 2Theoretical estimates assuming reasonable values for the galaxy merger rates, quasar lifetime, and brightness variations, predict that the recently completed Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey (PS1 MDS) has the area (80 square degrees), cadence (3 days), baseline (4.2 years), and magnitude sensitivity required to detect a significant number of periodic quasars during the phase of their binary SMBHs's orbital decay cause by gravity waves. In this project the PIs will analyze all 10 PS1 MDS fields, including over 7,000 photometrically-selected quasars. Furthermore, they will exploit the wide area and excellent cadence of the upcoming Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) to use difference imaging to search for active galactic nuclei spatially offset from their host galaxy center, potentially indicative of a recoiling SMBH merger remnant. Both searches will provide benchmark studies for the exciting capabilities of Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will have orders of magnitude larger survey power.

双态超大质量黑洞(SMBH)应该是大质量星系通过合并而增长的必然结果，也是宇宙中最强的引力波来源。然而，由于引力束缚的SMBH的轨道分离很小，星系和黑洞变化的这一基本阶段的观测证据仍然很难找到。在这个项目中，提出者将利用SMBH双星的一个理论预测的特征：物体亮度随时间的周期性变化，这是由与双星轨道运动有关的质量吸积率引起的。第二部分理论估计假设星系合并率、类星体寿命和亮度变化的合理值，预测最近完成的泛STARRS1中深探测(PS1 MDS)具有探测到大量周期类星体所需的面积(80平方度)、节奏(3天)、基线(4.2年)和震级敏感度，在引力波导致的双星SMBH轨道衰变阶段。在这个项目中，PI将分析所有10个PS1 MDS场，包括超过7,000个光度选择的类星体。此外，他们将利用即将到来的兹维基瞬变设施(ZTF)的广域和极佳的节奏来使用差分成像来搜索活动星系核在空间上偏离其所在星系中心的位置，这可能表明SMBH合并残留物。这两次搜索都将为大型天气观测望远镜(LSST)的令人兴奋的能力提供基准研究，该望远镜将具有更大的测量能力数量级。