The quasar SDSS J153636.22+044127.0: A double-peaked emitter in a candidate binary black hole system

Abstract

Double-peaked emission lines are believed to be originated from accretion disks around supermassive black holes (SMBHs), and about 3% of z < 0.33 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are found to be double-peaked emitters. The quasar SDSS J153636.22+044127.0 has recently been identified with peculiar broad-line emission systems exhibiting multiple redshifts. We decompose the Hα and Hβ profiles into a circular Keplerian diskline component and other Gaussian components. We propose that the system is both a double-peaked emitter and a binary SMBH system, where the extra flux in the blue peaks of the broad lines comes from the region around the secondary black hole. We suggest that such black hole binary systems might also exist in many known double-peaked emitters, where the tidal torques from the secondary black hole clear the outer region of the disk around the primary black hole, similar to the gap in a protostellar disk due to the process of planetary migration, and might also stimulate the formation of a vertical extended source in the inner region around the primary which illuminates the disk. However, most secondary SMBHs in such systems might be too small to maintain a detectable broad-line region (BLR), so that the disk line from the primary dominates.