Differential interferometry of close binary of supermassive black holes in an elliptical configuration

Abstract

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), and the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be a robust astrophysics suite offering the opportunity of probing the structure and dynamics of CB-SMBH at high spectral and angular resolution. Here, we explore and illustrate the application of differential interferometry on unresolved the CB-SMBH systems in elliptical orbital configurations and a single SMBH with clouds in elliptical orbital motion. Photocenter displacements between each SMBH and regions in their disc-like broad line regions (BLR) appear as small interferometric differential phase variability. To investigate the application of interferometric phases for the detection of CB-SMBH systems, we simulate a series of differential interferometry signatures, based on our model comprising ensembles of clouds surrounding each of supermassive black hole in a CB-SMBH. Setting model to the parameters of a single SMBH with elliptical cloud motion, we also calculated a series of differential interferometry observables for this case. We found various deviations from the canonical S-shaped of CB-SMBH phases profile for elliptically configured CB-SMBH systems. The amplitude and specific shape of the interferometry observables depend on orbital configurations of the CB-SMBH system. We get distinctive results when considering antialigned angular momenta of cloud orbits regarding total CB-SMBH angular momentum. Some simulated spectral lines from our model closely resemble observations of Pa \alpha line got from near-infrared AGN surveys. We found differences between differential phases zoo of a single SMBH and CB-SMBH systems. The differential phases zoo for a single SMBH comprises deformed S shape. We also showed how their differential phase shape, amplitude, and slope evolve with various sets of cloud orbital parameters and observer position.