Tracing Black Hole Mergers Through Radio Lobe Morphology
David Merritt,1*
R. D. Ekers23
Binary supermassive black holes are produced by galactic
mergers as the black holes from the two galaxies fall to the center of
the merged system and form a bound pair. The two black holes will
eventually coalesce in an enormous burst of gravitational radiation.
Here we show that the orientation of a black hole's spin axis would
change dramatically even in a minor merger, leading to a sudden flip in
the direction of any associated jet. We identify the winged or X-type
radio sources with galaxies in which this has occurred. The inferred
coalescence rate is similar to the overall galaxy merger rate, implying
that of the order of one merger event per year could be detected by
gravitational wave interferometers.
1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers
University, New Brunswick, NJ, 08903, USA.
2 Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, Post
Office Box 76, Epping, NSW 2121, Australia.
3 Radio
Astronomy Laboratory, 623 Campbell Hall, University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
merritt{at}physics.rutgers.edu
