Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei and Gravitational Wave Emission, simulated on large GPU clusters

Rainer Spurzem, Astronomisches Recheninstitut, Zentrum für Astronomie, Universität Heidelberg - 10.7.17

Abstract:

Many if not most galaxies contain supermassive black holes. In a gas free situation they are embedded in a very stellar cluster. The black hole grows through tidal disruption of stars and accretion of other black holes (stellar mass or other supermassive black holes after galaxy mergers). We study these processes with large direct N-body simulations including relativistic Post-Newtonian dynamics when needed. We find that tidal disruption rates can be enhanced in axisymmetric galactic nuclei; this effect is even more pronounced during a phase after galaxy mergers when the gravitational potential is non-axiysmmetric and strongly varying in time. Recent results show that also the presence of a gaseous disk in the central galactic regions will strongly enhance tidal disruption rates by trapping stars on nearly circular orbits confined within the disk. A stellar disk forms and after the removal of the gaseous disk the nucleus has some common features with our own Galactic Center. Inspired by recent detections we will also discuss in some detail the expected gravitational wave radiation from black holes on all mass scales in galactic nuclei and star clusters.