The 2nd biggest bang we know about, 3c186

[Airbrush]

There was a recent episode of "How the Universe Works" about this giant merger.  Did anyone see that?  In the episode they only dance around the incredible amount of energy that is required to accelerate a mass of 3 billion solar to a speed of 1300 miles per second.

"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.  This gravitational-wave emission occurred preferentially in one direction. When the two central black holes finally merged, this emission stopped, and the newly created leviathan rocketed off in the opposite direction."

Gravitational Waves Send Supermassive Black Hole Flying - Scientific American

Here are some facts and questions that I compiled about this merger in case anyone can answer these questions:

3c186 is about 3 BILLION solar masses.  It resulted from the merger of 2 supermassive black holes, one more massive than the other, thus the asymmetry causing 3c186 to be traveling 4.7 million miles per hour (1300 miles per second).

It is about 8 billion LY away and the merger took place about 2 billion years ago.

The merger generated the energy of 100 million supernovae.  How big a bang is that?  It converted 0.1% of its' mass into energy, or (0.1% x 3 BILLION solar = 3 MILLION solar masses converted into pure energy, all at one.  How long would that energy release take?  Both SBHs have giant event horizons, billions of miles in radius.  Would the energy released from the merger take minutes, hours, days, weeks?

Would there be a fireball?  Maybe not, because when they merged, GIANT gravity waves would have carried most of the energy away and any fireball would have been sucked up by 3c186.  Anyone want to try to explain how they merged?

How many megatons of TNT would the merger generate?  My feeble calculations produced the number "undecillion" or about 10^36 megatons, what it takes to accelerate 3 Billion solar masses to 1300 miles per second.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall an episode about a merger of 2 stellar mass black holes, each was less than 100 solar masses.  The result was 9 solar masses converted into energy.  Compare that to 3 million solar masses converted into energy!!

Hubble detects supermassive black hole kicked out of galactic core | ESA/Hubble (esahubble.org)

Can anyone translate the following article into English?

Gravitational Waves in 3C186 – Supermassive Black Hole Ejection « General Relativity (gravityphysics.com)

 

 

Can anyone explain this in English?

"There is a black hole formed of total mass 3 billion solar masses (using the arXiv paper as a source for all calculations). Since a solar mass black hole has a Schwarzschild radius of 3 km, that makes for an object diameter of about 18 billion km, which is also of order of the wavelength of the waves involved in a gravitational merger.

"The merger time when 80% of the energy is released is roughly 100 M for two holes of mass M merging, we have M = 1.5e9 solar masses, so the light travel time is about 1.5e9*3km/3e8meters/sec or 16,000 seconds is M in this case. 100 M is the time where all the energy comes out – AKA the chirp.

"So about 1,600,000 seconds is the relevant time. (For GW150914 that LIGO saw the same time would be 0.03 seconds – the holes were only 30 solar masses)."

Gravitational Waves in 3C186 – Supermassive Black Hole Ejection « General Relativity (gravityphysics.com)

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Airbrush
corrections

[Airbrush]

Anyone familiar with the merging of 2 black holes?  Remember when LIGO detected a "chirp" of when 2 black holes whirling around each other, speeding up until they merge in a crescendo chirp?  The 2 combined mass equaled over 100 solar masses and 9 solar masses was converted totally into energy.  What was it like when 2 supermassive black holes, one billion and another two billion solar masses, whirl around each other faster and faster until they chirp up as they merge?  3 MILLION solar masses was converted instantly into energy.  Each SBH is dragging along a huge accretion disc, as they both crash thru each other's accretion discs, faster and faster.  Imagine the sparks flying!  What speed would they reach whirling around each other?  Would it be 1300 miles per second, which is the speed the new SBH is flying out of its' galaxy?

"When they translated the signal into sound, they heard something resembling a “chirp.”  Scientists determined that the gravitational waves were set off by the rapid inspiraling of two massive black holes. The peak of the signal — the loudest part of the chirp — linked to the very moment when the black holes collided, merging into a single, new black hole." 

Scientists detect tones in the ringing of a newborn black hole for the first time | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Edited May 5, 2023 by Airbrush

[Genady]

7 hours ago, Airbrush said:

The 2 combined mass equaled over 100 solar masses and 9 solar masses was converted totally into energy.

No, it was not. Partially, yes.

 

7 hours ago, Airbrush said:

3 MILLION solar masses was converted instantly into energy. 

It was not.

You can calculate maximum mass that could be converted into energy as follows.

Surface area of a BH is proportional to its mass squared. One BH has mass M1 with surface area A1, the other M2 with area A2.

The surface area of the resulting BH cannot decrease. So its surface area A >= A1 + A2. Thus, its mass M is such that M² >= M1² + M2².

This means that maximum mass that could be converted to energy is M1 + M2 - M = M1 + M2 - sqrt(M1² + M2²).

For example, with your numbers, 100 and 9 solar masses, the maximum was 109 - sqrt(10000+81) = 8.6 solar masses.

[swansont]

54 minutes ago, Genady said:

No, it was not. Partially, yes.

 

It was not.

You can calculate maximum mass that could be converted into energy as follows.

Surface area of a BH is proportional to its mass squared. One BH has mass M1 with surface area A1, the other M2 with area A2.

The surface area of the resulting BH cannot decrease. So its surface area A >= A1 + A2. Thus, its mass M is such that M² >= M1² + M2².

This means that maximum mass that could be converted to energy is M1 + M2 - M = M1 + M2 - sqrt(M1² + M2²).

For example, with your numbers, 100 and 9 solar masses, the maximum was 109 - sqrt(10000+81) = 8.6 solar masses.

No, you misread that. M1 + M2 = ~100 and the mass of the resulting BH was ~91

The surface are limitation you cite is ~70 if M1 and M2 are (roughly) equal. 79, if they are 75 and 25. Converting 9 solar masses to energy isn’t in conflict.

8 hours ago, Airbrush said:

3 MILLION solar masses was converted instantly into energy. 

The numbers you cited earlier tell us that it was not instantly converted. It took a few weeks, if your number is correct.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

No, you misread that. M1 + M2 = ~100 and the mass of the resulting BH was ~91

The surface are limitation you cite is ~70 if M1 and M2 are (roughly) equal. 79, if they are 75 and 25. Converting 9 solar masses to energy isn’t in conflict.

Yes, I misread their post.

[Airbrush]

9 hours ago, swansont said:

The numbers you cited earlier tell us that it was not instantly converted. It took a few weeks, if your number is correct.

That is an interesting point.  Since both SBHs are over a billion solar masses, their giant size would be out to the Oort cloud if overlaying our solar system.  On that scale the speed of light seems slow, there is no instantaneous release of energy, or anything else.

Does anyone have an idea to what speed the two SBHs could have spun around each other before merging?

[swansont]

14 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

Does anyone have an idea to what speed the two SBHs could have spun around each other before merging?

Limited by c, obviously. You could probably estimate the linear speed by calculating the rotational speed from the in-spiral graphs (inverse of the period), and using v = wr and with the Schwarzschild radius for r. (assume equal mass BHs)

[Airbrush]

On 5/5/2023 at 1:50 PM, swansont said:

Limited by c, obviously. You could probably estimate the linear speed by calculating the rotational speed from the in-spiral graphs (inverse of the period), and using v = wr and with the Schwarzschild radius for r. (assume equal mass BHs)

Can anyone make this estimation?

If it takes days or weeks for the merger to occur, the 2 SBHs would just touch event horizons, while they are whirling around each other faster and faster.  Gravity waves would be blasting out in every direction, like a balloon that is released to fly around in random directions.  The final kick from the merger sent the new SBH flying away at 1300 miles per second.  Right?

Edited May 8, 2023 by Airbrush

[Airbrush]

What would it be like for 2 SBHs that are whirling around each other, faster and faster, each is a quasar, both are crashing through the others accretion disks?  It seems like that would be a pulsing mega-quasar, when 2 giant quasars merge, visible across the entire observable universe.

[Mordred]

Well you will certainly get gravitational wave chirps as well as variations in any EM signals emitting from the accretion disks including the accretion jets. 

If you want further detail on gravitational wave chirps the commonly used formulas are provided here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirp_mass.

 

[Airbrush]

What is the average diameter of the accretion disk of a one billion solar mass SBH?  It must be at least several light years across I guess.

When merging SBH crash through each other's accretion disks, how energetic of a pulse is that?  It must far outshine the merging quasars.  Maybe they would be visible by the naked eye from billions of light years away.  That should be the brightest light in the universe, a pulsing mega-quasar, just before they chirp up.  Do they twist space or each other's event horizons as they rip around each other?

Edited May 12, 2023 by Airbrush

[Mordred]

accretion disks can have numerous variations its not nearly straightforward as one might think. One of the better references regarding accretion disks I hve come across is this lengthy article

http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.5499 :''Black hole Accretion Disk'

the merging of two blackholes would likely diffuse the accretion disks over a wider area thus reducing its overall density and subsequently reducing the gamma rays emitting from them over a wider area. Anyways hope you enjoy the article it is rather lengthy but highly informative on many of the BH related processes. Anyways as you can see due to numerous factors many involving hydrodynamics, disk types BH spin, available material etc. The answers to your questions above can range in answers due to those various factors.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Mordred

[Airbrush]

Thanks for the info Mordred.  That gets me thinking.  As the 2 quasars approach each other, they would pull and contort each other's accretion disks long before they get too close.  It might look as chaotic as a computer simulation of merging galaxies, how stars pass through each other, then fall back through each other.  Maybe the merger would not be a mega-quasar, orders of magnitude brighter than the individual "average" quasars.  Assuming billion solar mass quasars with average-sized accretion disks.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Airbrush

[Mordred]

That's a fairly accurate description it would act very similar to merging galaxies albeit on a smaller scale. Other difference would also involve a difference in percentages in charged ion behavior in regards to the  relevant Poynting vectors and Compton scattering .

 Relevant luminosity of course involving the peak wavelengths.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Mordred

[Airbrush]

Quasars usually have a single accretion disk.  When quasars merge, they must tear apart and scatter each other's accretion disks, resulting in many streams of matter entering each quasar from multiple directions, not just a single plane, but many contorted planes of accretion.  Enough sparks to be noticed from across the universe.  Just guessing.

[Mordred]

True however one must also factor in the luminosity relations. If you spread the infalling material over a wider area with the outgoing material also spread over a larger area. The material won't be as energized and subsequently a lower temperature. So the mean average frequency is lower. So both the luminosity and apparent magnitude would be reduced as opposed to a single confined outgoing accretion jet.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Mordred

[Airbrush]

Is it correct to say that any quasar that has a jet pointed at us is called a "blazar"?  If so, then the vast majority of quasars that we see are not blazars.  If 2 giant quasars were merging, they would whirl around each other faster and faster.  If they were both distorting and tearing apart each other's accretion disks, won't that create more surface area infalling, where much more matter is being dumped onto the black hole?  Would more matter falling in from many different directions from different accretion structures be like throwing more wood on the fire?

[Mordred]

yes to blazars the difference between the two is the orientation As you described. Try thinking of it this way the infalling material is the shared material of the surroundings. you have two BH in a region does not increase the available material. That material must be already available in that region. Lets say you have a solar mass of available plasma of material in a 1 light year radius. In the center you have a single BH. In the other scenario you have 2 BH of the same mass. Which scenario would produce the most luminous accretion jet ?