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Originally published in Science Express on 7 June 2007
Science 29 June 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5833, pp. 1874 - 1877
DOI: 10.1126/science.1141858
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Reports

Rapid Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Galaxy Mergers with Gas

L. Mayer,1,2* S. Kazantzidis,3* P. Madau,4,5 M. Colpi,6 T. Quinn,7 J. Wadsley8

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a ubiquitous component of the nuclei of galaxies. It is normally assumed that after the merger of two massive galaxies, a SMBH binary will form, shrink because of stellar or gas dynamical processes, and ultimately coalesce by emitting a burst of gravitational waves. However, so far it has not been possible to show how two SMBHs bind during a galaxy merger with gas because of the difficulty of modeling a wide range of spatial scales. Here we report hydrodynamical simulations that track the formation of a SMBH binary down to scales of a few light years after the collision between two spiral galaxies. A massive, turbulent, nuclear gaseous disk arises as a result of the galaxy merger. The black holes form an eccentric binary in the disk in less than 1 million years as a result of the gravitational drag from the gas rather than from the stars.

1 Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Zurich, Winterthurestrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
2 Institut für Astronomie, ETH Zürich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 16, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
3 Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Department of Physics, Stanford University, Post Office Box 20450, MS 29, Stanford, CA 94309, USA.
4 Department of Astronomy, University of California at Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
5 Max Planck Institute für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild Strasse 1, 85740 Garching bei Muenchen, Germany.
6 Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 3, I-20126 Milano, Italy.
7 Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Stevens Way, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
8 Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lucio{at}phys.ethz.ch (L.M.); stelios{at}slac.stanford.edu (S.K.)

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