Unveiling the hosts of parsec-scale massive black hole binaries: morphology and electromagnetic signatures

• Published in: arXiv.org 2022-12
• Main Authors: Izquierdo-Villalba, David, Sesana, Alberto, Colpi, Monica
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Elliptical galaxies; Luminosity; Mathematical models; Signatures; Spiral galaxies; Structural hierarchy
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2207.04064

Parsec-scale massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) are expected to form in hierarchical models of structure formation. Even though different observational strategies have been designed to detect these systems, a theoretical study is a further guide for their search and identification. In this work, we investigate the hosts properties and the electromagnetic signatures of massive black holes gravitationally bound on parsec-scales with primary mass \(\rm {>}\,10^7\,M_{\odot}\). For that, we construct a full-sky lightcone by the use of the semi-analytical model L-Galaxies in which physically motivated prescriptions for the formation and evolution of MBHBs have been included. Our predictions show that the large majority of the MBHBs are placed either in spiral galaxies with a classical bulge structure or in elliptical galaxies. Besides, the scaling relations followed by MBHBs are indistinguishable from the ones of single massive black holes. We find that the occupation fraction of parsec-scale MBHBs reaches up to \({\sim}\,50\%\) in galaxies with \(\rm M_{stellar}\,{>}\,10^{11}\, M_{\odot}\) and drops below 10\% for \(\rm M_{stellar}\,{}\,1\) but the number of binaries per \(\rm deg^2\) is \({\lesssim}\,0.01\) at \(\rm L_{\rm bol}\,{>}\,10^{45} \rm erg/s\).