Efficient Merger of Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Nonaxisymmetric Galaxies
Efficient Merger of Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Nonaxisymmetric Galaxies
Binary supermassive black holes form naturally in galaxy mergers, but their long-term evolution is uncertain. In spherical galaxies, N-body simulations show that binary evolution stalls at separations much too large for significant emission of gravitational waves (the "final parsec problem"). Here, we follow the long-term evolution of a massive binary …