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Understanding the interaction of massive black hole binaries with their gaseous environment is crucial since at sub-parsec scales the binary is too wide for gravitational wave emission to take over and to drive the two black holes to merge. We here investigate the interaction between a massive black hole binary and a self-gravitating circumbinary disc using 3D smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We find that, when the disc self-gravity regulates the angular momentum transport, the binary semi-major axis decreases regardless the choice of disc masses and temperatures, within the range we explored. In particular, we find that the disc initial temperature (hence the disc aspect ratio) has little effect on the evolution of the binary since discs with the same mass self-regulate towards the same temperature. Initially warmer discs cause the binary to shrink on a slightly shorter timescale until the disc has reached the self-regulated equilibrium temperature. More massive discs drive the binary semi-major axis to decrease at a faster pace compared to less massive discs and result in faster binary eccentricity growth even after the initial-condition-dependent transient evolution. Finally we investigate the effect that the initial cavity size has on the binary-disc interaction and we find that, in the self-gravitating regime, an initially smaller cavity leads to a much faster binary shrinking, as expected. Our results are especially important for very massive black hole binaries such as those in the PTA band, for which gas self gravity cannot be neglected., Comment: 9 pages, submitted to MNRAS on June 1st 2021

We investigate the formation and evolution of misaligned accretion discs around the secondary component of a binary through mass transfer driven by Kozai-Lidov oscillations of the circumprimary disc's eccentricity and inclination. We perform SPH simulations to study the amount of mass transferred to the secondary star as a function of both the disc and binary parameters. For the range of parameters we explore, we find that increasing the disc aspect ratio, viscosity parameter and initial inclination as well as decreasing the binary mass ratio leads to larger amount of mass transfer, up to a maximum of about ten per cent of the initial mass of the primary disc. The circumsecondary disc forms with a high eccentricity and a high inclination and is also able to undergo KL oscillations. The circumsecondary disc oscillations have a shorter period than those in the disc around the primary. We find that some of the material that escapes the Roche-lobe of the two components forms a narrow misaligned circumbinary accretion disc. This study has implications for disc evolution in young binary star systems., Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures

We investigate the formation mechanism for the observed nearly polar aligned (perpendicular to the binary orbital plane) debris ring around the eccentric orbit binary 99 Herculis. An initially inclined nonpolar debris ring or disc will not remain flat and will not evolve to a polar configuration, due to the effects of differential nodal precession that alter its flat structure. However, a gas disc with embedded well coupled solids around the eccentric binary may evolve to a polar configuration as a result of pressure forces that maintain the disc flatness and as a result of viscous dissipation that allows the disc to increase its tilt. Once the gas disc disperses, the debris disc is in a polar aligned state in which there is little precession. We use three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, linear theory, and particle dynamics to study the evolution of a misaligned circumbinary gas disc and explore the effects of the initial disc tilt, mass, and size. We find that for a wide range of parameter space, the polar alignment timescale is shorter than the lifetime of the gas disc. Using the observed level of alignment of 3 deg. from polar, we place an upper limit on the mass of the gas disc of about 0.014 M_sun at the time of gas dispersal. We conclude that the polar debris disc around 99 Her can be explained as the result of an initially moderately inclined gas disc with embedded solids. Such a disc may provide an environment for the formation of polar planets., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Type I outbursts in Be/X-ray binaries are usually associated with the eccentricity of the binary orbit. The neutron star accretes gas from the outer parts of the decretion disk around the Be star at each periastron passage. However, this mechanism cannot explain type I outbursts that have been observed in nearly circular orbit Be/X-ray binaries. With hydrodynamical simulations and analytic estimates we find that in a circular orbit binary, a nearly coplanar disk around the Be star can become eccentric. The extreme mass ratio of the binary leads to the presence of the 3:1 Lindblad resonance inside the Be star disk and this drives eccentricity growth. Therefore the neutron star can capture material each time it approaches the disk apastron, on a timescale up to a few percent longer than the orbital period. We have found a new application of this mechanism that is able to explain the observed type I outbursts in low eccentricity Be/X-ray binaries., 6 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJL

Massive black hole binaries are predicted to form during the hierarchical assembly of cosmic structures and will represent the loudest sources of low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) detectable by present and forthcoming GW experiments. Before entering the GW-driven regime, their evolution is driven by the interaction with the surrounding stars and gas. While stellar interactions are found to always shrink the binary, recent studies predict the possibility of binary outspiral mediated by the presence of a gaseous disk, which could endlessly delay the coalescence and impact the merger rates of massive binaries. Here we implement a semianalytical treatment that follows the binary evolution under the combined effect of stars and gas. We find that binaries may outspiral only if they accrete near or above their Eddington limit and only until their separation reaches the gaseous disk self-gravitating radius. Even in case of an outspiral, the binary eventually reaches a large enough mass for GW to take over and drive it to coalescence. The combined action of stellar hardening, mass growth, and GW-driven inspiral brings binaries to coalescence in a few hundreds of megayears at most, implying that gas-driven expansion will not severely affect the detection prospects of upcoming GW facilities.

We investigate the misalignment of the circumbinary disk around the binary HD 98800 BaBb with eccentricity $e\simeq 0.8$. \cite{Kennedy2019} observed the disk to be either at an inclination of $48^{\circ}$ or polar aligned to the binary orbital plane. Their simulations showed that alignment from $48^\circ$ to a polar configuration can take place on a shorter timescale than the age of this system. We perform hydrodynamical numerical simulations in order to estimate the cavity size carved by the eccentric binary for different disk inclinations as an independent check of polar alignment. Resonance theory suggests that torques on the inner parts of a polar disk around such a highly eccentric binary are much weaker than in the coplanar case, indicating a significantly smaller central cavity than in the coplanar case. We show that the inferred inner radius (from carbon monoxide measurements) of the accretion disk around BaBb can exclude the possibility of it being mildly inclined with respect to the binary orbital plane and therefore confirm the polar configuration. This study constitutes an important diagnostic for misaligned circumbinary disks, since it potentially allows us to infer the disk inclination from observed gas disk inner radii., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL

The tidal forces close to massive black holes can rip apart stars that come too close to them. As the resulting stellar debris spirals toward the black hole, the debris heats up and emits x-rays. We report observations of a stable 131-second x-ray quasi-periodic oscillation from the tidal disruption event ASASSN-14li. Assuming the black hole mass indicated by host galaxy scaling relations, these observations imply that the periodicity originates from close to the event horizon and that the black hole is rapidly spinning. Our findings demonstrate that tidal disruption events can generate quasi-periodic oscillations that encode information about the physical properties of their black holes., United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF6-170156), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF6-170150), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF5-160144), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF5-160145), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Award SV2-82023)

The manner in which warps in accretion disks evolve depends on the magnitude of the viscosity. For small viscosity $(\alpha < H/R)$ the warp evolves in a wave-like manner; for large viscosity $H/R, Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

Type-C QPOs in X-ray binaries have been often interpreted as a consequence of relativistic Lense-Thirring precession around a spinning black hole and they potentially offer a way to measure black hole spins and masses. The connection between relativistic precession and the resulting QPO has been made either in terms of a simplified model involving a single test particle producing the QPO, or in terms of a global model where a geometrically thick accretion flow precesses coherently as a rigid body. In this paper, we analyse similarities and differences between these two models, sometimes considered as in opposition to each other. We demonstrate that the former is the limiting case of the latter when the radial extent of the precessing flow is very small, and that solid lower limits to the black hole spin can be obtained by considering the test particle model alone. We also show that the global precession model naturally accounts for the range of frequencies observed for Type-C QPOs without the need to invoke a truncation of the inner accretion flow before it reaches the innermost stable circular orbit. Finally, we show that, in order to maintain rigid precession, the thick accretion flow should be radially narrow, and that if it extends beyond $10-10^2$ gravitational radii it aligns with the black hole spin too fast to produce a coherent QPO., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Black hole X-ray transients show a variety of state transitions during their outburst phases, characterized by changes in their spectral and timing properties. In particular, power density spectra (PDS) show quasi periodic oscillations (QPOs) that can be related to the accretion regime of the source. We looked for type-C QPOs in the disc-dominated state (i.e. the high soft state) and in the ultra-luminous state in the RXTE archival data of 12 transient black hole X-ray binaries known to show QPOs during their outbursts. We detected 6 significant QPOs in the soft state that can be classified as type-C QPOs. Under the assumption that the accretion disc in disc-dominated states extends down or close to the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) and that type-C QPOs would arise at the inner edge of the accretion flow, we use the relativistic precession model (RPM) to place constraints on the black hole spin. We were able to place lower limits on the spin value for all the 12 sources of our sample while we could place also an upper limit on the spin for 5 sources., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures

A tidal disruption event (TDE) occurs when a star wanders close enough to a black hole to be disrupted by its tidal force. The debris of a tidally disrupted star are expected to form an accretion disc around the supermassive black hole. The light curves of these events sometimes show a quasi-periodic modulation of the flux that can be associated with the precession of the accretion disc due to the Lense-Thirring ("frame-dragging") effect. Since the initial star orbit is in general inclined with respect to the black hole spin, this misalignment combined with the Lense-Thirring effect leads to a warp in the disc. In this paper we provide a simple model of the system composed by a thick and narrow accretion disc surrounding a spinning supermassive black hole, with the aim to: (a) compute the expected precession period as a function of the system parameters, (b) discuss the conditions that have to be satisfied in order to have rigid precession, (c) investigate the alignment process, highlighting how different mechanisms play a role leading the disc and the black hole angular momenta into alignment., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 12 pages, 12 figures