Binary-disk interaction: Gap-Opening criteria

Abstract

We study the interaction of an equal mass binary with an isothermal circumbinary disk motivated by the theoretical and observational evidence of the formation of massive black holes binaries surrounded by gas, after a major merger of gas-rich galaxies. We focus on the torques that the binary produces on the disk and how the exchange of angular momentum can drive the formation of a gap on it. We propose that the angular momentum exchange between the binary and the disk is through the gravitational interaction of the binary and a (tidally formed) global non-axisymmetric perturbation in the disk. Using this gravitational interaction we derive an analytic criterion for the formation of a gap in the disk that can be expressed on the structural parameters h/a and M(< r)/M_{bin}. Using SPH simulations we show that the simulations where the binary opens a gap in the disk and the simulations where the disk does not have a gap are distributed in two well separate regions. Our analytic gap-opening criterion predicts a shape of the threshold between this two regions that is consistent with our simulations and the other ones in the literature. We propose an analogy between the regime without (with) a gap in the disk and the Type I (Type II) migration that is observed in simulations of planet-disk interaction (binaries with extreme mass ratios), emphasizing that the interaction that drives the formation of a gap on the disk is different in the regime that we analyze (comparable mass binary).