Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

Gravitational Wave Recoil Oscillations of Black Holes: Implications for Unified Models of Active Galactic Nuclei

FREE ISSUE

S. Komossa1 and David Merritt2

Show affiliations


We consider the consequences of gravitational wave recoil for unified models of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Spatial oscillations of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) around the cores of galaxies following gravitational wave (GW) recoil imply that the SMBHs spend a significant fraction of time off-nucleus, at scales beyond that of the molecular obscuring torus. Assuming reasonable distributions of recoil velocities, we compute the off-core timescale of (intrinsically type 2) quasars. We find that roughly one-half of major mergers result in a SMBH being displaced beyond the torus for a time of 107.5 yr or more, comparable to quasar activity timescales. Since major mergers are most strongly affected by GW recoil, our results imply a deficiency of type 2 quasars in comparison to Seyfert 2 galaxies. Other consequences of the recoil oscillations for the observable properties of AGNs are also discussed.

Subject headings

galaxies: active; galaxies: evolution; quasars: general


Dates

Issue 2 (2008 December 20)

Received 2008 September 24, accepted for publication 2008 October 28

Published 2008 November 6



  1. Gravitational Wave Recoil Oscillations of Black Holes: Implications for Unified Models of Active Galactic Nuclei

    S. Komossa and David Merritt 2008 ApJ 689 L89

  2. Long-term correlations in the surface behavior of dolphins

    R. Ferrer i Cancho and D. Lusseau 2006 Europhys. Lett. 74 1095

  3. Superselection from canonical constraints

    Michael J W Hall 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 7799

  4. High-order corrections to the entropy and area of quantum black holes

    Shahar Hod 2004 Class. Quantum Grav. 21 L97

  5. Implicit solutions of PDEs

    D B Fairlie 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 5375

  6. Systematic Effects and a New Determination of the Primordial Abundance of 4He and dY/dZ from Observations of Blue Compact Galaxies

    Yuri I. Izotov and Trinh X. Thuan 2004 ApJ 602 200

  7. Structural properties of NaCl and KCl under pressure

    S Froyen and M L Cohen 1986 J. Phys. C: Solid State Phys. 19 2623

  8. The covariance of GPS coordinates and frames

    Marc Lachièze-Rey 2006 Class. Quantum Grav. 23 3531

  9. Uniqueness of the asymptotic AdS3 geometry

    M Rooman and Ph Spindel 2001 Class. Quantum Grav. 18 2117

  10. Conductance modulation of a nonballistic Datta–Das spin field effect transistor

    S Caliskan 2006 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 18 10313

Users also read

What's this?
This innovative new feature generates a list of articles 'also read' by other users based on them reading the original article. Article abstracts citations and references are all considered and weighted accordingly. We hope that this will help you find relevant papers for your research.

  1. A Recoiling Supermassive Black Hole in the Quasar SDSS J092712.65+294344.0?
  2. Tidal Disruption Flares from Recoiling Supermassive Black Holes

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.