Formation of discs around super-massive black hole binaries

Abstract

AbstractWe model numerically the evolution of 104M⊙ turbulent molecular clouds in near-radial infall onto 106M⊙, equal-mass supermassive black hole binaries, using a modified version of the SPH code gadget-3. We investigate the different gas structures formed depending on the relative inclination between the binary and the cloud orbits. Our first results indicate that an aligned orbit produces mini-discs around each black hole, almost aligned with the binary; a perpendicular orbit produces misaligned mini-discs; and a counter-aligned orbit produces a circumbinary, counter-rotating ring.