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3 votes
2 answers
326 views

Why would the merger of spinning black holes within the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole cause them to "shoot straight up" out of the disk?

I just tried to read the new New York Times article Two Black Holes Colliding Not Enough? Make It Three which links to the new 25-June-2020 Physical Review Letter Graham et al. Candidate ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
2 votes
1 answer
193 views

What enhances the capture and merge rates of pairs of small black holes orbiting around supermassive black holes?

I just tried to read the new New York Times article Two Black Holes Colliding Not Enough? Make It Three which links to the new 25-June-2020 Physical Review Letter Graham et al. Candidate ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
20 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why can't supermassive black holes merge? (or can they?)

The CNet article Astronomers discover two supermassive black holes in a death spiral links to Discovery of a Close-separation Binary Quasar at the Heart of a z ~ 0.2 Merging Galaxy and Its ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

Why is frequency different for gravitational waves coming from SMBHs vs small compact binaries?

Why do gravitational waves emitted by supermassive black holes binaries have low-frequency range (~10$^{-9}$ - 10$^{-2}$ Hz) than those emitted by stellar mass compact binaries (~10$^{-4}$ - 10$^2$ ...
Awais Mirza's user avatar