A consortium of astronomers from Argentina, Spain, Italy, USA and India has discovered a binary ‘Super Massive Black Hole’, which will be a strong candidate for future detection of gravitational waves (GWs).
An international collaboration of astronomers discovered the black hole system in the gravitationally lensed blazar (AO 0235+164) with the use of extensive optical photometric observations carried out around the globe during the last 4 decades (1982 – 2019).
A binary supermassive black hole discovered in a system which could be the site of future gravitational waves detection
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Deciphering the process of discovery
The international astronomers in the joint capacity discovered the periodic double-peaked flaring events at an interval of around 8 years, and the separations between two peaks of these flares are around 2 years.
Notably, the team of astronomers detected five sets of double-peaked flaring activities during time ranges — January 1982 – October 1984, March 1989 – July 1993, April 1996 – March 2001, June 2006 – June 2009 and May 2014 – May 2017.
Further, it was predicted that the next such 2 years long flaring episode would happen between November 2022 and May 2025.
To confirm the next periodic pattern, a global optical photometric monitoring campaign has been started by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) consortium. Further, the observational campaign will be led by Dr. Alok C. Gupta, Scientist – F (Professor), Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital.
An intensive multi-wavelength (WEBT) campaign will be conducted during this period to test the persistence of this apparent nearly-periodic oscillation (QPO) in AO 0235+164.
The blazar AO 0235+164 is the first binary SMBH gravitationally lensed system, which will be a strong candidate of its kind for future detection of gravitational waves (GWs) using the pulsar timing array and future space-based GW detectors.
It is pertinent to note that, Dr. Alok C. Gupta also participated in the study which has been recently published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). The study was led by Mr. Abhradeep Roy, a Ph.D. student of the Department of High Energy Physics (DHEP), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai including other members of the Indian team include Prof. V. R. Chitnis, Dr. Anshu Chatterjee and Dr. Arkadipta Sarkar from TIFR, Mumbai.
Blazars: The super massive black holes
Blazars, which are super massive black holes (SMBH) feeding on gas in the heart of a very distant galaxy, are among the most luminous and energetic objects in the Universe.
When the jet, composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light, is pointed towards an observer, it is called a blazar. The blazar AO 0235+164 is unique as it is gravitationally lensed by intervening galaxies (phenomenon by which light shining from far away to be bent and pulled by the gravity of an object between its source and the observer).
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