Proto supermassive binary black hole detected in X-rays

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Astrophysicists at Bonn University's Argelander Institute für Astronomie, the U. S. Naval Research Lab, and the University of Virginia have detected two supermassive black holes using images obtained with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The black holes had been seen previously in radio images. The new X-ray data further strengthen the case that the black holes are physically close and form a bound system; i.e., they seem to form a real couple as opposed to being unrelated travellers on a road, caught by chance as they walk by each other.

Using the new Chandra data, the team have been able to spatially resolve the two supermassive black holes (separated by 0.004 degrees) at the centre of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 400. "The high resolution Chandra data allowed us to show that these two black holes are moving through the intracluster medium at the supersonic speed of about 1200 km/s," says Daniel Hudson, lead author of the submitted paper. The wind from such a motion would cause the radio plasma emitted from these two black holes to bend backwards. Although this bending had been observed previously, the cause of it was still being debated. Since the bending of the jets due to this motion is in the same direction, it suggests that the two black holes are travelling along the same path within the cluster and are therefore gravitationally bound.

The probable fate of these black holes is dim: several millions of years or more from now they will coalesce in a devilish dance while sending out cries of gravitational waves, as predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. NASA's Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will likely be able to measure such events directly.

Für weitere Informationen:
» http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dhudson/Press_Release/Press.html

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