Infalling clouds on to supermassive black hole binaries - I. Formation of discs, accretion and gas dynamics

CUADRA, JORGE; TANAKA, T; GOICOVIC, FELIPE; AMARO-SEOANE, PAU; STASYSZYN, FEDERICO

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2016 vol. 455 p. 1989 - 2003

0035-8711

There is compelling evidence that most ?if not all? galaxies harbour a super-massive black hole (SMBH) at their nucleus, hence binaries of these massive objects are an inevitable product of the hierarchical evolution of structures in the universe, and represent an important but thus-far elusive phase of galaxy evolution. Gas accretion via a circumbinary disc is thought to be important for the dynamicalevolution of SMBH binaries, as well as in producing luminous emission that can be used to infer their properties. One plausible source of the gaseous fuel is clumps of gas formed due to turbulence and gravitational instabilities in the interstellar medium, that later fall toward and interact with the binary. In this context, we modelnumerically the evolution of turbulent clouds in near-radial infall onto equal-mass  SMBH binaries, using a modified version of the SPH code gadget-3. We present a total of 12 simulations that explore different possible pericentre distances and relative inclinations, and show that the formation of circumbinary discs and discs around each SMBH (?mini-discs?) depend on those parameters. We also study the dynamics of the formed discs, and the variability of the feeding rate onto the SMBHs in the different configurations.