Black Hole Binary Mergers in Galactic Nuclei: Combined Effects of Secular Dynamics and Stellar Flybys
Abstract
Galactic nuclei, with the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and surrounding dense star clusters, serve as natural laboratories for studying gravitational dynamics in extreme gravitational environments. In this work, we model the long term evolution of black hole binaries (BHBs) in these environments by incorporating the tidal influence of the central SMBH, the potential of the nuclear star cluster, SMBH induced relativistic precession, and stochastic perturbations from stellar flybys. Our numerical simulations show that the long term evolution of BHBs is predominantly governed by the SMBH-driven ZLK mechanism. However, once stellar flybys are included, they can modify both the binary angular momentum and energy. The cumulative effect of repeated flyby encounters substantially reshapes the long term dynamical evolution, eventually leading systems toward either merger or disruption. Based on a population synthesis study, we find that this combined secular and non-secular channel produces a merger rate of approximately ℛ≃16Gpc−3yr−1, which is significantly higher than the rates predicted by dynamical channels that neglect stellar flybys. Furthermore, we predict that a non-negligible fraction of merging systems would retain detectable eccentricities at low frequencies around 5 Hz, thus providing a distinctive observational signature for next generation ground based GW detectors. Our results demonstrate that the stochastic perturbations from the surrounding environment are essential for modeling BHB evolution in galactic nuclei, and that this channel may contribute a major fraction of observed mergers.
Related
- Binary Dynamics and Mergers in a Stellar Disk and the Formation of Dusty Objects in the Galactic Center
- Binary Dynamics and Mergers in a Stellar Disk and the Formation of Dusty Objects in the Galactic Center
- Aligned Hierarchical Black Hole Mergers in Active-Galactic-Nuclei Disks Revealed by GWTC-4
- Ballistic mixing: Stellar mergers drive internal mixing in extremely massive stars with implications for proto-globular cluster pollution
- Constraining Ultralight Scalars with Black Hole Binary Mergers in Galactic Nuclei
BibTeX
@misc{wang2026black,
title = {{Black Hole Binary Mergers in Galactic Nuclei: Combined Effects of Secular Dynamics and Stellar Flybys}},
author = {Hao Wang and Bin Liu and Johan Samsing},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.19879},
eprint = {2610.19879},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.19879},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Black Hole Binary Mergers in Galactic Nuclei: Combined Effects of Secular Dynamics and Stellar Flybys
AU - Hao Wang
AU - Bin Liu
AU - Johan Samsing
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.19879
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.19879
AB - Galactic nuclei, with the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and surrounding dense star clusters, serve as natural laboratories for studying gravitational dynamics in extreme gravitational environments. In this work, we model the long term evolution of black hole binaries (BHBs) in these environments by incorporating the tidal influence of the central SMBH, the potential of the nuclear star cluster, SMBH induced relativistic precession, and stochastic perturbations from stellar flybys. Our numerical simulations show that the long term evolution of BHBs is predominantly governed by the SMBH-driven ZLK mechanism. However, once stellar flybys are included, they can modify both the binary angular momentum and energy. The cumulative effect of repeated flyby encounters substantially reshapes the long term dynamical evolution, eventually leading systems toward either merger or disruption. Based on a population synthesis study, we find that this combined secular and non-secular channel produces a merger rate of approximately ℛ≃16Gpc^−3yr^−1, which is significantly higher than the rates predicted by dynamical channels that neglect stellar flybys. Furthermore, we predict that a non-negligible fraction of merging systems would retain detectable eccentricities at low frequencies around 5 Hz, thus providing a distinctive observational signature for next generation ground based GW detectors. Our results demonstrate that the stochastic perturbations from the surrounding environment are essential for modeling BHB evolution in galactic nuclei, and that this channel may contribute a major fraction of observed mergers.
ER -