Tracking Supermassive Black Hole Mergers from kpc to sub-pc Scales with AXIS

Abstract

We present an analysis showcasing how the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS), a proposed NASA Probe-class mission, will significantly increase our understanding of supermassive black holes undergoing mergers—from kpc to sub-pc scales. In particular, the AXIS point spread function, field of view, and effective area are expected to result in (1) the detection of hundreds to thousands of new dual AGNs across the redshift range 0 < z < 5 and (2) blind searches for binary AGNs that are exhibiting merger signatures in their light curves and spectra. AXIS will detect some of the highest-redshift dual AGNs to date, over a large range of physical separations. The large sample of AGN pairs detected by AXIS (over a magnitude more than currently known) will result in the first X-ray study that quantifies the frequency of dual AGNs as a function of redshift up to z = 4.