Constraining a black hole companion for M87* through imaging by the Event Horizon Telescope. (arXiv:1905.06835v1 [astro-ph.GA])

Constraining a black hole companion for M87* through imaging by the Event Horizon Telescope. (arXiv:1905.06835v1 [astro-ph.GA])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Safarzadeh_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Mohammadtaher Safarzadeh</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Loeb_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Abraham Loeb</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Reid_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Mark Reid</a>

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global very long baseline
interferometric array observing at a wavelength of 1.3 mm, detected the first
image of the M87 supermassive black hole (SMBH). M87 is a giant elliptical
galaxy at the center of Virgo cluster, which is expected to have formed through
merging of cluster galaxies. Consequently M87* hosted mergers of black holes
through dynamical friction and could have one or multiple binary companions
with a low mass ratio at large separations. We show that a long-term monitoring
of the M87 SMBH image over $sim$1 year with absolute positional accuracy of
1$approxmu as$ could detect such binary companions and exclude a large
parameter space in semi major axis ($a_0$) and mass ratio ($q$), which is
currently not constrained. Moreover, the presence of the accretion disk around
M87* excludes a binary companion with $a_0approx$ of order a mili parsec, as
otherwise the accretion disk would have been tidally disrupted.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global very long baseline
interferometric array observing at a wavelength of 1.3 mm, detected the first
image of the M87 supermassive black hole (SMBH). M87 is a giant elliptical
galaxy at the center of Virgo cluster, which is expected to have formed through
merging of cluster galaxies. Consequently M87* hosted mergers of black holes
through dynamical friction and could have one or multiple binary companions
with a low mass ratio at large separations. We show that a long-term monitoring
of the M87 SMBH image over $sim$1 year with absolute positional accuracy of
1$approxmu as$ could detect such binary companions and exclude a large
parameter space in semi major axis ($a_0$) and mass ratio ($q$), which is
currently not constrained. Moreover, the presence of the accretion disk around
M87* excludes a binary companion with $a_0approx$ of order a mili parsec, as
otherwise the accretion disk would have been tidally disrupted.

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