HEAD 17

The simulations shown below were run at a low resolution with fiducial binary parameters (primary mass of 10⁸ solar masses, mass ratio of 0.01, and separation of 100 gravitational radii; corresponding orbital time of ~0.1 years). The simulated domain extends out to 1000 AU, though the videos here are zoomed in to better show the regions of greatest interest. These preliminary runs only last for roughly 45 orbits of the secondary SMBH; later runs will extend to 1000 orbits to enable high-fidelity identification of long-period (i.e., tens to hundreds of orbits) variability.

The videos are shown in the frame of reference co-rotating with the secondary SMBH.

A PDF of my poster can be found here.

The simulations were produced using the hydrodynamics code FARGO3D. The videos were created from simulation outputs using the yt visualization software.

The accretion implementation follows the methods in Kley 1999. The radiative cooling implementation uses the exact integration scheme of Townsend 2009, with the realistic disk cooling function of Johnson & Gammie 2003. If you are interested in either a detailed discussion or a broad overview of these methods, of other physical prescriptions used in my simulations, or of the scientific background and possible implications of this work, I encourage you to reach out to me via email at kwhitle@umich.edu.