Hypervelocity Supermassive Black Hole

[Airbrush]

The one Billion-solar-mass quasar 3c186 is off center in its' galaxy moving outward at 4.7 million mph (1305 miles per second)!!  They think it got fired out of the galaxy when 2 supermassive black holes merged, after 2 galaxies merged.  Can you think of more momentum than that?  That will tear across the universe, like a bowling ball through pins, and maybe nothing will ever stop or divert it.

"A supermassive black hole heftier than 1 billion suns has been ejected from the core of its galaxy by gravitational waves, a new study suggests.   The monster black hole has already zoomed 35,000 light-years away from its galaxy's center, farther than Earth and its sun are from the core of our own Milky Way. And the behemoth is currently traveling outward at 4.7 million mph (7.6 million km/h)—fast enough for the black hole to escape its galaxy completely in 20 million years, researchers said."

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravitational-waves-send-supermassive-black-hole-flying/

Edited February 6, 2019 by Airbrush

[swansont]

48 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

That will tear across the universe, like a bowling ball through pins, and maybe nothing will ever stop or divert it.

At 0.7% the speed of light. That's fast by human standards, but it's not making it "across the universe" 

48 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

" fast enough for the black hole to escape its galaxy completely in 20 million years, researchers said."

 

20 million years is a long time. 

And I wonder how much it slows as it escapes. 

[Mordred]

Interesting article and find, here is the arxiv pdf on the finding.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.05501.pdf

[Airbrush]

22 hours ago, swansont said:

At 0.7% the speed of light. That's fast by human standards, but it's not making it "across the universe" 

20 million years is a long time. 

And I wonder how much it slows as it escapes. 

Since stars are so far apart, it seems like it will meet very little resistance until it approaches the edge of the galaxy.  Only as it nears the edge of its' galaxy will the combined gravity of the galaxy pull on it from behind to slow it.  A Billion solar masses compacted into such a small area will ignore everything else in the galaxy.  Many galaxies have hundreds of billions of solar masses, so as 3c 186  passes by OTHER galaxies it will feel some gravity slightly bending its' path, right?  Other galaxies may even accelerate it.  Anyone want to try to explain its' possible path?  I think nothing can ever stop it, unless it slams into something as massive as it is, and there are not many SBHs that massive around.  If stars are so far apart that they will almost never meet, supermassive black holes are FAR more scarce.  Very unlikely anything will ever stop it, it seems to me.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Airbrush

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

Since stars are so far apart, it seems like it will meet very little resistance until it approaches the edge of the galaxy.  Only as it nears the edge of its' galaxy will the combined gravity of the galaxy pull on it from behind to slow it. 

No, it will feel that pull all along, from stars it has passed. (if the mass is spherically symmetric, all of the mass inside the sphere acts as if it were in the center)

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A Billion solar masses compacted into such a small area will ignore everything else in the galaxy. 

As a point of comparison, the Milky Way is estimated to have about 250 billion stars in it, with an estimated mass of 100 billion solar masses. A billion solar masses sounds like a lot, but it's small in comparison to a decent-sized galaxy.

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Many galaxies have hundreds of billions of solar masses, so as 3c 186  passes by OTHER galaxies it will feel some gravity slightly bending its' path, right? 

20 million years to go perhaps 20,000 LY is 10^-3 LY/year, or 1000 years per LY.  

Galaxies are much smaller than the space between them. A million LY, perhaps further. So it would take a billion years at 1000 years per LY...if it's headed in the right direction. "Pass by other galaxies" does not have much meaning in this context.

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Other galaxies may even accelerate it. 

Wait. The galaxy it's leaving won't slow it, but a galaxy 100 times further away will accelerate it? Gravity is 1/r^2. The galaxy it's leaving will have around 10,000 times the effect as any distant galaxy, as it leaves.

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Anyone want to try to explain its' possible path?  I think nothing can ever stop it, unless it slams into something as massive as it is, and there are not many SBHs that massive around.  If stars are so far apart that they will almost never meet, supermassive black holes are FAR more scarce.  Very unlikely anything will ever stop it, it seems to me.

Odds are it goes out on its own, and nothing further of significance happens. if it's not headed in the direction of the closest galaxy, you have to check if it's traveling fast enough to catch whatever it's headed toward, given the expansion of the universe. Hubble constant is 160 km/s/million LY, so  a naive comparison says that anything beyond about 13-14 million LY is receding faster than this is going.

[Airbrush]

You think it will probably not ever encounter anything of significance?  It will head unimpeded towards the edge of its' supercluster.  Beyond that the expansion of the universe overtakes its' own relative speed.  It will never make it to the next supercluster? 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Airbrush

[Mordred]

It would be a wild guess, if anything impedes its progress though its unlikely to encounter another galaxy let alone another LSS or supercluster. However as none of us have the information on its flight path etc we would only be guessing...

[swansont]

14 hours ago, Airbrush said:

You think it will probably not ever encounter anything of significance?  It will head unimpeded towards the edge of its' supercluster.  Beyond that the expansion of the universe overtakes its' own relative speed.  It will never make it to the next supercluster? 

As Mordred say, it's a guess, because we don't know the particulars. But space is really big. You look out at the night sky, and there's a lot of empty out there (more if you ignore everything in the Milky Way) — meaning if there is anything in a particular direction where the sky is black, it's too far away for us to see unaided. We can only see 7 other galaxies with the naked eye. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_galaxies#Naked-eye_galaxies

[Airbrush]

Could anyone please calculate the radius of a one-Billion-solar mass black hole? That math is beyond me.

Suppose there were civilizations living in the galaxy where quasar 3c186 is on a rampage.  Could any survive such a galaxy merger and resulting black hole merger?  Could there be a safe place on the other side of the galaxy?  What would it look like from a safe distance?  Imagine that thing clearing a path through our galaxy.  How many solar masses could it absorb in a day or a year?

What masses of black holes can create a one-Billion-solar SBH moving that fast?  Our galaxy's SBH is only 4 Million solar masses, which is tiny in comparison.  Quasar 3c186 is 2500 times as massive as our SBH.  3c186 would tear though the center of our galaxy without hardly noticing our black hole and not slowing at all.  

The article says 3c186 was launched by gravitational waves.  What about centrifugal force?  Wouldn't the off-balanced merger act like a sling shot? 

Edited February 9, 2019 by Airbrush

[Strange]

2 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Could anyone please calculate the radius of a one-Billion-solar mass black hole?

About 3 billion kilometres or 20 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun.

The math is actually quite simple but, to make it even simpler, here is an online calculator: http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/

[MigL]

So its event horizon would have a radius just outside the orbit of Uranus...
Not really large compared to interstellar distances.

[swansont]

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

The article says 3c186 was launched by gravitational waves.  What about centrifugal force?  Wouldn't the off-balanced merger act like a sling shot? 

Why are these mutually exclusive?

[Endy0816]

Accretion disk is further out. Still space is big.

Would be cool to see a gas giant or star get rammed, instead of the normal slow loss of velocity and/or random inward orbit.

[Airbrush]

19 hours ago, swansont said:

Why are these mutually exclusive?

Then the velocity of 3c186 is a combination of sling shot AND gravitational waves?  Do the gravity waves act like a single impulse like a cannon shot?

1.  How WIDE a path would 3c186 clear through that galaxy?

2.  Does the accretion disk act as a drag on it moving thru its' galaxy?

3.  How much drag would stars, gas, and dust have on it?  How much will it slow down?

4.  It may pass thru one or two more galaxies before it embarks upon a voyage into a void.  A great void will be its' final destination.  While it is passing thru the void, would there be enough atoms in the void to create a small accretion disk or a comet-like tail?

5.  Would virtual particles create an accretion disk in the void?

6.  What is a safe distance to observe it from?

6 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

Accretion disk is further out. Still space is big.

Would be cool to see a gas giant or star get rammed, instead of the normal slow loss of velocity and/or random inward orbit.

That's what I'm talking about.  What would it look like clearing a path through a galaxy?

Edited February 10, 2019 by Airbrush

[Endy0816]

1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

That's what I'm talking about.  What would it look like clearing a path through a galaxy?

Ballpark estimate of the BH and accretion disk is at less than 1 ly. There's about 4 ly between just us and Alpha Centauri to put this in perspective. Massive but could still sail between solar systems without a problem.

If it did happen to run into something though it'd be much like you might imagine. Vacuum cleaner with a fearsome accretion disk around it.

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Then the velocity of 3c186 is a combination of sling shot AND gravitational waves?  Do the gravity waves act like a single impulse like a cannon shot?

No, I asked why they are mutually exclusive. i.e. that the “slingshot” was not a result of gravitational waves. “Sling shot” (or centrifugal force) is not a distinct interaction. You have to have some interaction to cause the “slingshot”

 

[Airbrush]

What is the velocity the result of?  Is it the 2 SBHs crashing directly into each other, or circling each other in an off-balanced way?   One of them must be more massive than the other.  So I was thinking of the 2 orbiting the other until they got up to a high speed when they combined, thus such an off-balanced merger throwing them together, out like an ancient sling shot.  How else do gravity waves accelerate such a massive thing?  Could it be the result of the interaction of 3 SBHs ?

22 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

Ballpark estimate of the BH and accretion disk is at less than 1 ly. There's about 4 ly between just us and Alpha Centauri to put this in perspective. Massive but could still sail between solar systems without a problem.

Maybe it won't "clear a path" but rather leave chaos behind it, yanking stars around?  How wide a path of chaos can such a massive thing cause moving through a galaxy?  Or is it moving so fast that it sneaks between solar systems before its' gravity can drag anything long enough in any direction?

What would the quasar look like from a "safe" place?  Such an extreme brightness, from the accretion disk, that you can't see what's happening.  In fact you better not even look in that general direction.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Airbrush

[swansont]

4 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

What is the velocity the result of?  Is it the 2 SBHs crashing directly into each other, or circling each other in an off-balanced way?   One of them must be more massive than the other.  So I was thinking of the 2 SBHs orbiting the other until they got up to a high speed when they combined, thus such an off-balanced merger, throwing them out like an ancient sling shot.  How else do gravity waves accelerate such a massive thing?  Like a cosmic tsunami?

From the link 

Quote

The two galaxies' central black holes circled closer and closer to each other during the collision. As this happened, the black holes emitted gravitational waves—the ripples in space-time first proposed by Albert Einstein a century ago, and first detected directly last year by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project.
This gravitational-wave emission occurred preferentially in one direction, the idea goes. When the two central black holes finally merged, this emission stopped, and the newly created leviathan rocketed off in the opposite direction.

The masses were almost certainly different, and they would spiral in about their center of mass, meaning the inspiral would definitely be "off-balance"

If you get the huge burst of gravitational radiation and it's asymmetric, the BH has to go in the opposite direction in order to conserve momentum. The momentum is E/c.

so m_converted c = m_BHv  where the converted mass represents the asymmetry in the radiation

If the energy of the asymmetry is in the amount of a million solar masses (remembering that the much smaller mergers we have seen have had 5-10% of the mass converted to energy, and this only represents 0.1% of the mass) then the BH would have a speed of 0.001 c, so this is in the right ballpark. If such an asymmetry existed, this is a perfectly reasonable result.

 

 

[Airbrush]

23 hours ago, swansont said:

From the link 

The masses were almost certainly different, and they would spiral in about their center of mass, meaning the inspiral would definitely be "off-balance"

If you get the huge burst of gravitational radiation and it's asymmetric, the BH has to go in the opposite direction in order to conserve momentum. The momentum is E/c.

so m_converted c = m_BHv  where the converted mass represents the asymmetry in the radiation

If the energy of the asymmetry is in the amount of a million solar masses (remembering that the much smaller mergers we have seen have had 5-10% of the mass converted to energy, and this only represents 0.1% of the mass) then the BH would have a speed of 0.001 c, so this is in the right ballpark. If such an asymmetry existed, this is a perfectly reasonable result.

That means if a million solar masses, which is 10% of the mass of a Billion-solar-mass BH, is converted into energy in the instant of merger, that energy can accelerate a Billion solar masses to 4.7 Million miles per hour?

How long does it take a million solar masses to be converted into energy?  What's the diameter of the fireball?  That sounds like some big firecracker!

Edited February 12, 2019 by Airbrush

[swansont]

30 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

That means if a million solar masses, which is 10% of the mass of a Billion-solar-mass BH,

A million is not 10% of a billion. It is 0.1% of a billion.

10^6/10^9 = 10^-3

30 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

is converted into energy in the instant of merger, that energy can accelerate a Billion solar masses to 4.7 Million miles per hour?

That's what conservation of momentum tells us

30 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

How long does it take a million solar masses to be converted into energy?  What's the diameter of the fireball?  That sounds like some big firecracker!

I don't know how long it would take. The much smaller black hole mergers took a few tenths of a second for the final merger, and these would be proportionally larger, but I'm not sure how it scales. That's probably one of the limits on how much recoil you can have, though, since it would take time to accelerate the BH.

[Airbrush]

Would it be safe to say that the explosion that threw one billion solar masses to 1300 miles per second, was a short burst?  Can we assume the explosion, of one million solar masses being totally converted into energy, took only seconds?  Or a fraction of a second?  Could the 2 SBHs that merged have themselves been spinning at high rates, but in different directions?

Can anyone think of a more energetic event than a million solar masses being converted totally into energy, in a matter of seconds (besides the big bang)?

Edited February 13, 2019 by Airbrush

[swansont]

15 hours ago, Airbrush said:

 Can we assume the explosion, of one million solar masses being totally converted into energy, took only seconds? 

The merger likely converted much more mass into gravitational radiation. I was only looking at the magnitude of asymmetry needed to get the BH to the speed it's traveling.

 

[Airbrush]

On ‎2‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 3:09 AM, swansont said:

The merger likely converted much more mass into gravitational radiation. I was only looking at the magnitude of asymmetry needed to get the BH to the speed it's traveling.

 

Considering the speed it is traveling, does that not suggest that the SBH was accelerated by a single pulse impulse?  (tell me how long it would take to convert).  If the MILLION solar masses, that were converted into energy, took a long time to convert (minutes, hours, days, etc), the SBH would have been pushed in many directions and not sent in one direction at 4 million mph.  I was thinking of a balloon flying around in all directions when you let go of it.

Consider the merger of 2 ultra-massive black holes, for example two that are 20 Billion solar masses EACH, creating one of 40 Billion solar masses.  Would that be considered a more energetic event than the acceleration of 3c186?  When the gravity waves radiate out in all directions, the merger does not throw it out of the center of the galaxy.  How much matter would be converted into energy during a merger of SBHs?

Edited February 17, 2019 by Airbrush

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Considering the speed it is traveling, does that not suggest that the SBH was accelerated by a single pulse impulse?  (tell me how long it would take to convert).  If the MILLION solar masses, that were converted into energy, took a long time to convert (minutes, hours, days, etc), the SBH would have been pushed in many directions and not sent in one direction at 4 million mph.  I was thinking of a balloon flying around in all directions when you let go of it.

Last I checked, momentum was a vector. If the asymmetric waves were sent in one direction, the BH would recoil in the opposite direction. You can’t be sent in many directions.

4 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Consider the merger of 2 ultra-massive black holes, for example two that are 20 Billion solar masses EACH, creating one of 40 Billion solar masses. 

You would not create one of equal mass, since some mass is converted to gravitational radiation 

4 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Would that be considered a more energetic event than the acceleration of 3c186?  When the gravity waves radiate out in all directions, the merger does not throw it out of the center of the galaxy. 

It would depend on how much mass were converted.

4 hours ago, Airbrush said:

How much matter would be converted into energy during a merger of SBHs?

Matter isn’t converted, mass is. I don’t know the answer to “how much”

[Airbrush]

On ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 12:12 PM, swansont said:

... If the asymmetric waves were sent in one direction, the BH would recoil in the opposite direction. You can’t be sent in many directions.

Then that means about 0.1% of the mass, or one million solar masses, was converted into gravitational energy in a single pulse, like a cannon.  During the merger, it was NOT like a balloon rocketing around a room, changing directions as the air blasts out.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Airbrush