Abstract
Most theoretical discussions of active galactic nuclei (including quasars) attribute their energy production either to an accreting black hole or to a precursor stage—for instance a dense star cluster or a supermassive star—whose inevitable end point is a massive black hole1. We explore here the possibility that some active nuclei may contain two massive black holes in orbit about each other. This hypothesis suggests a new interpretation for the observed bending2 and apparent precession3 of radio jets emerging from these objects and may indeed be verified through detection of the direct consequences of orbital motion.
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Begelman, M., Blandford, R. & Rees, M. Massive black hole binaries in active galactic nuclei. Nature 287, 307–309 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/287307a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/287307a0
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