Misc,

Ultrafast Outflows from Black Hole Mergers with a Mini-Disk

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(Feb 25, 2016)

Abstract

Recently, the direct detection of gravitational waves from black hole (BH) mergers was announced by the Advanced LIGO Collaboration. Multi-messenger counterparts of stellar-mass BH mergers are of interest, and it had been suggested that a small disk or celestial body may be involved in the binary of two BHs. To test such possibilities, we consider the fate of a wind powered by an active mini-disk in a short accretion episode onto a BH with \~10-100 solar masses. We show that, while the detections of counterparts may be currently challenging, its thermal emission could be seen as a fast optical transient with the duration of hours. We also find that the coasting outflow forms external shocks due to interaction with the interstellar medium, whose synchrotron emission might be expected in the radio band on a time scale of years. Finally, we also discuss a possible jet component and the associated high-energy emission.

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