Recurrent Neutrino Emission from Supermassive Black Hole Mergers

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for supermassive black hole mergers in blazar TXS 0506+056 to produce periodic neutrino emissions and gravitational waves, offering predictions for future detections.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking neutrino emission episodes to binary black hole systems and predicts the timing of future neutrino and gravitational wave signals.

Findings

Next neutrino flare could occur before end of 2021

Derived binary properties for gravitational wave detection by LISA

Quantified correlation timescales for neutrino and gravitational signals

Abstract

The recent detection of possible neutrino emission from the blazar TXS 0506+056 was the first high-energy neutrino associated with an astrophysical source, making this special type of active galaxies promising neutrino emitters. The fact that two distinct episodes of neutrino emission were detected with a separation of around 3 years suggests that emission could be periodic. Periodic emission is expected from supermassive binary black hole systems due to jet precession close to the binary's merger. Here we show that if TXS 0506+056 is a binary source then the next neutrino flare could occur before the end of 2021. We derive the binary properties that would lead to the detection of gravitational waves from this system by LISA. Our results for the first time quantify the time scale of these correlations for the example of TXS 0506+056, providing clear predictions for both the neutrino and gravitational-wave signatures of such sources.