Unveiling Colliding Black Holes: The Quasar Connection

Collisions between stellar-mass black holes may occur in the violent environments created around supermassive black holes known as quasars. These quasars, which are incredibly bright, could be hiding smaller black holes that are growing by merging. Computer simulations showed that gas in the disks around supermassive black holes can slow down the speed of stellar-mass black holes, causing them to remain gravitationally bound to each other and their supermassive black hole "big brother." The simulations also revealed that the direction in which the black holes orbit the supermassive black hole can affect the production of gravitational wave emissions. This research validates that black hole mergers in supermassive black hole discs can happen and may explain many of the gravitational wave signals observed today.