• Title/Summary/Keyword: Black Holes

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SNU AGN Monitoring Project (SAMP) using reverberation mapping of luminous AGNs

  • Jeon, Yiseul;Woo, Jong-Hak
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.41 no.1
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    • pp.70.4-71
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    • 2016
  • The links between super-massive black hole masses and their host galaxy properties are observed, indicating that black hole growth and host galaxy evolution are closely related. Reverberation mapping, which uses the time delay from the central black hole to broad line regions, is one of the best methods to estimate masses of black holes of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). However, only masses of about 50 black holes have been determined in reverberation mapping studies so far, and most of them are limited to optical luminosities below 10^45 erg/s due to the challenges of long-term time domain observations in both photometry and spectroscopy. In this project, we expand reverberation mapping samples to higher luminosities of > 10^44.5 erg/s at 0.1 < z < 0.35, that have expected time lags of 40 - 250 light days. Photometric (using LOAO 1-m and MDM 1.3-m) and spectroscopic (using MDM 2.4-m and Lick 3-m) monitoring campaigns are being conducted for a 3 year duration and 20 day cadence. Precedent photometric observations in 2015B show some targets with variability and follow-up spectroscopic observations are on-going. In this presentation, we introduce our project, present reverberation mapping simulation results, and preliminary results on photometry. These reverberation mapping masses of relatively high luminous AGNs will provide a strong constraint on black hole mass calibration, e.g., the single-epoch mass estimation.

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PRECESSION OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES

  • PARK SEOK JAE
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.28 no.1
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    • pp.71-75
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    • 1995
  • In the previous work we made a long term evolution code for the central black hole in an active galactic nucleus under the assumption that the Blandford-Znajek process is the source of the emission. Using our code we get the evolution of the angular velocity of the precession for a supermassive black hole. We consider a hole at the center of an axisymmetric, ellipsoidal galactic nucleus. Our numerical results show that, only for the cases such that the stellar density or the mass of the black hole is large enough, the precession of the black hole - presumably the precession of the galactic jet - is interestingly large.

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Photometric Reverberation Mapping of Active Galactic Nuclei with Medium-band filters and LSGT

  • Kim, Joonho;Im, Myungshin;Choi, Changsu
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.42 no.2
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    • pp.73.1-73.1
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    • 2017
  • Reverberation mapping is one of the best way to investigate structure and kinematics of broad-line regions around central supermassive black holes of active galactic nuclei (AGN). It is usually used to estimate masses of supermassive black holes. So far, reverberation mapping studies have achieved good results for dozens of AGN by spectroscopic monitoring. However, spectroscopic monitoring is time consuming and high cost. Here, we present result of photometric reverberation mapping with medium-band observation. We monitored five nearby AGN which are already studied, have short time-lag, and show bright H-alpha emission lines. Observation has been performed for ~3 months with ~3 days cadence using three medium-band filters installed in LSGT (Lee Sang Gak Telescope). We found 0.01-0.06 magnitude variations by differential photometry. Also time-lags between continuum light-curves and H-alpha emission line light-curves are calculated using Javelin software. The result shows that our study and previous studies are consistent within uncertainty range. From verification of availability in this study, photometric reverberation mapping could be used as a powerful tool to measure central supermassive black holes for large samples and high-redshift AGN in the future.

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Radiation Driven Warping of Circumbinary Disks around Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Active Galactic Nuclei

  • Hayasaki, Kimitake;Sohn, Bong Won;Okazaki, Atsuo T.;Jung, Taehyun;Zhao, Guangyao;Naito, Tsuguya
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.39 no.2
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    • pp.74.1-74.1
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    • 2014
  • We study a wraping instability of a geometrically thin, non-self-gravitating disk surrounding binary supermassive black holes on a circular orbit. Such a circumbinay disk is subject to not only tidal torques due Line 8 to the binary gravitational potential but also radiative rorques due to radiation emitted from each accretion disk. We find tat a circumbinary disk initially aligned with the binary orbital plane is unstable to radiation-driven warping beyond the marginally stable warping radius, which is sensitive to both the ratio of vertical to horizontal shear viscosities and the mass-to-energy conversion efficiency. As expected, the tidal torques give no contribution to the growth of warping modes but tend to align the circumbinary disk with the orbital plane. Since the tidal torques can suppress the warping modes in the inner part of circumbinary disk, the circumbinaary disk starts to be warped at the radii larger than the marginally stable warping radius. If the warping radius is of the order of 0.1 pc, a resultant semi-major axis is estimated to be of the order of 10-2 pc to 10-4 pc for 107 Msun black hole. We also discuss the posibility that the central objects of observed warped maser disks in active galactic nuclei are binary supermassive black holes with a triple disk: two accretion disks around the individual black holes and one circumbinary disk surrounding them.

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New Instabilities in Accretion Flows onto Black Holes

  • MOLTENI D.;FAUCI F.;GERARDI G.;BISIKALO D.;KUZNETSOV O.;ACHARYA K.;CHAKRABARTI S.
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.34 no.4
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    • pp.247-249
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    • 2001
  • The accretion disks are usually supposed symmetric to reflection on the Z=0 plane. Asymmetries in the flow are be ver-y small in the vicinity of the compact accretor. However their existence can have a important role in the case of subkeplerian accretion flows onto black holes. These flows lead to strong heating and even to the formation of shocks close to the centrifugal barrier. Large asymmetries are due to the development of the KH instability triggered by the small turbulences at the layer separating the incoming flow from the out coming shocked flow. The consequence of this phenomenon is the production of asymmetric outflows of matter and quasi periodic oscillations of the inner disk regions up and down the Z=0 plane.

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Effect of stellar mass blck holes in the globular clusters on the detection rate of binary black hole mergers

  • Park, Dawoo;Kim, Chunglee;Lee, Hyung Mok;Bae, Yeong-Bok
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.41 no.1
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    • pp.68.1-68.1
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    • 2016
  • Binary black hole mergers are one of the important candidate of gravitational wave (GW) emission. Recently a successful GW observation was done by LIGO team, but it is still uncertain how many GW signals will be observable. In this research, we perform simplified N-body simulations containing three mass components, ordinary stars with two kind of stellar mass black holes. Various BH compositions are tested to investigate the effect of BH mass function on binary formation rate. As a result, we find the binary formation rate is not much affected by BH mass function and always around 30 %, but the detectable merging binaries are largely depend on higher mass BH population.

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Gravitational-Wave Astronomy (중력파 천문학)

  • Kim, Chunglee
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.41 no.1
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    • pp.31.3-31.3
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    • 2016
  • Exploring a universe with gravitational waves (GWs) was only theoretical expectation for long time. In September 2015, the Laser Interferometer GW Observatory (LIGO) first detected GWs emitted from the collision of two stellar-mass black holes in cosmological distance (1.3 billion light years) on Earth. This confirms the existence of black-hole binary mergers, and further, opens a new field of GW astronomy. We begin our discussion with a list of important GW sources that can be detectable on Earth by large-scale laser interferometers such as LIGO. Focusing on compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes, we then discuss possible research in the context of GW astronomy. By coordinating with existing observatories, searching for electromagnetic waves or particles from astronomical objects, around the world, multi-messenger astronomy for the universe's most cataclysmic phenomena (e.g. gamma-ray bursts) will be available in the near future.

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PLASMA WAVE PROPAGATION IN THE BLACK HOLE IONOSPHERE

  • Park, Seok-Jae
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.28 no.2
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    • pp.147-152
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    • 1995
  • An axisymmetric, stationary electrodynamic model of the central engine of an active galactic nucleus has been well formulated by Macdonald and Thorne. In this model the relativistic region around the central black hole must be filled by highly conducting plasma. We analyze plasma wave propagation in this region and discuss the results. We find that the ionosphere cannot exist right outside of the event horizon of the black hole. Another interesting aspect is that certain resonance phenomena can occur in this case.

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