A recoiling supermassive black hole in a powerful quasar

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ConfirmedRecoiling.pdf (3.48 MB)

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https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.18730v2

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https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.18730
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/37783

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UMBC Faculty Collection
UMBC Physics Department

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Author/Creator ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7676-9962

Date

2025-01-30

Type of Work

journal articles
preprints
Text

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Citation of Original Publication

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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain

Subjects

Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Supermassive black holes (SMBH) are thought to grow through accretion of matter and mergers. Models of SMBH mergers have long suffered the final parsec problem, where SMBH binaries may stall before energy loss from gravitational waves (GW) becomes significant, leaving the pair unmerged. Direct evidence of coalesced SMBH remains elusive. Theory predicts that GW recoiling black holes can occur following a black hole merger. Here we present decisive spectroscopic evidence that the gas bound to the SMBH in the spatially offset quasar 3C 186 is blue-shifted relative to the host galaxy. This is exclusively explained by the GW recoil super-kick scenario. This confirmation of the ejection process implies that the final parsec problem is resolved in nature, providing evidence that even the most massive black holes can merge.