* Astronomy

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RE: CID-42

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Giant Black Hole Kicked Out of Home Galaxy

Astronomers have found strong evidence that a massive black hole is being ejected from its host galaxy at a speed of several million miles per hour. New observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest that the black hole collided and merged with another black hole and received a powerful recoil kick from gravitational wave radiation.
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Title: Chandra High resolution Observations of CID-42, a candidate recoiling SMBH
Authors: F. Civano, M. Elvis, G. Lanzuisi, T. Aldcroft, M. Trichas, A. Bongiorno, M. Brusa, L. Blecha, A. Comastri, A. Loeb, M. Salvato, A. Fruscione, A. Koekemoer, S. Komossa, R. Gilli, V. Mainieri, E. Piconcelli, C. Vignali

We present Chandra High Resolution Camera observations of CID-42, a candidate recoiling supermassive black hole (SMBH) at z=0.359 in the COSMOS survey. CID-42 shows two optical compact sources resolved in the HST/ACS image embedded in the same galaxy structure and a velocity offset of ~1300 km/s between the H\beta\ broad and narrow emission line, as presented by Civano et al. (2010). Two scenarios have been proposed to explain the properties of CID-42: a GW recoiling SMBH and a double Type 1/ Type 2 AGN system, where one of the two is recoiling because of slingshot effect. In both scenario, one of the optical nuclei hosts an unobscured AGN, while the other one, either an obscured AGN or a star forming compact region. The X-ray Chandra data allow to unambiguously resolve the X-ray emission, and unveil the nature, of the two optical sources in CID-42. We find that only one of the optical nuclei is responsible for the whole X-ray unobscured emission observed and a 3sigma upper limit on the flux of the second optical nucleus is measured. The upper limit on the X-ray luminosity plus the analysis of the multiwavelength spectral energy distribution indicate the presence of a starforming region in the second source rather than an obscured SMBH, thus favouring the GW recoil scenario. However the presence of a very obscured SMBH cannot be fully ruled-out. A new X-ray feature, in a SW direction with respect to the main source, is discovered and discussed.

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Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Civano et al. Optical: NASA/STScI

Position (2000): RA 10 00 29.06, Dec +02° 05' 31.33"

Blobrana · L

CID-42: A Black Hole Slingshot?

Evidence for a recoiling black hole has been found using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and several ground-based telescopes. This black hole kickback was caused either by a slingshot effect produced in a triple black hole system, or from the effects of gravitational waves produced after two supermassive black holes merged a few million years earlier.
The discovery of this object, located in this composite image, comes from a large, multi-wavelength survey, known as the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS). This survey includes data from Chandra, HST, XMM- Newton, as well as ground-based observatories. Of the 2,600 X-ray sources found in COSMOS, only one -- named CID-42 and located in a galaxy about 3.9 billion light years away -- coincides with two very close, compact optical sources (The two sources are seen in the HST data, but they are too close for Chandra to resolve separately.) In this image, the X-ray source detected by Chandra is colored blue, while the Hubble data are seen in gold.
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