Electromagnetic variability from circumbinary discs around binary black holes during their post-decoupling epoch

ABSTRACT We present general-relativistic hydrodynamical simulations of inviscid circumbinary discs (CBDs) around near equal-mass binary black holes (BBH) in the binary-disc post-decoupling epoch. We use an approximate BBH space–time with a post-Newtonian inspiral motion trajectory from ${\sim }80 (M/10^7 \mathrm{M_\odot }) \, \mbox{d}$ (separation of ${\sim }\, 30$ gravitational radii) to ${\sim }100 (M/10^7\, \mathrm{M_\odot }) \, \mbox{min}$ before merger. Initial data for the inspiral runs are produced from circular-orbits runs covering the formation time-scale of the overdense ‘lump’, orbiting the CBD inner edge. The CBD non-axisymmetries (spiral waves and lump) lead to non-negligible angular momentum transport with effective viscosity ${\alpha _\mathrm{eff} \, {\sim } \, 10^{{-3}}{- 2\times 10}^{-2}}$. We post-process these simulations with a general-relativistic ray-tracing code to obtain synthetic observations in thermal emission. We find the lump and its associated electromagnetic (EM) modulation, already reported in the pre-decoupling epoch, to survive post-decoupling up until the end of the simulation. For the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) sources, our findings point to an active EM signature in UV during optimal gravitational wave source localization. For Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) sources and current BBH candidates detected through their optical periodicity: the lump in a low-viscosity CBD is a possible, though not unique, origin for the observed periodicity.