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arXiv · 0803.0003

Brightening of an Accretion Disk Due to Viscous Dissipation of Gravitational Waves During the Coalescence of Supermassive Black Holes

Bence Kocsis·Abraham Loeb
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Abstract

Mergers of supermassive black hole binaries release peak power of up to ~10^57 erg/s in gravitational waves (GWs). As the GWs propagate through ambient gas, they induce shear and a small fraction of their power is dissipated through viscosity. The dissipated heat appears as electromagnetic (EM) radiation, providing a prompt EM counterpart to the GW signal. For thin accretion disks, the GW heating rate exceeds the accretion power at distances farther than 10^3 Schwarzschild radii, independently of the accretion rate and viscosity coefficient.

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Bence Kocsis, Abraham Loeb. 2008-07-01. Brightening of an Accretion Disk Due to Viscous Dissipation of Gravitational Waves During the Coalescence of Supermassive Black Holes. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.101.041101

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