Dark Flare — BBH merger emission in AGN disks

Interactive visualization of the electromagnetic counterpart ("Dark Flare") of a stellar-mass binary black hole merger inside an AGN accretion disk, with live LSST g/r/i light curves of the McKernan et al. (2019) kicked-remnant / ram-stripped Hill-sphere model.

The merger itself emits only gravitational waves — the sole optical emission is the delayed off-center hot spot left by the kicked remnant.

Developed by P. Darc, based on:

P. Darc, C. R. Bom, C. D. Kilpatrick, A. Souza Santos, B. Fraga, J. C. Rodríguez-Ramírez, D. A. Coulter, C. Mendes de Oliveira, A. Kanaan, T. Ribeiro, W. Schoenell, E. A. D. Lacerda (2025), Long-Term Optical Follow Up of S231206cc: Multi-Model Constraints on BBH Merger Emission in AGN Disks, arXiv:2506.02224

Model: McKernan, Ford, Bartos et al. 2019, ApJL 884, L50; light-curve shape per Graham et al. 2020 (ZTF19abanrhr).

Citation

@misc{darc2025longtermopticalfollows231206cc,
      title={Long-Term Optical Follow Up of S231206cc: Multi-Model Constraints on BBH Merger Emission in AGN Disks},
      author={P. Darc and C. R. Bom and C. D. Kilpatrick and A. Souza Santos and B. Fraga and J. C. Rodríguez-Ramírez and D. A. Coulter and C. Mendes de Oliveira and A. Kanaan and T. Ribeiro and W. Schoenell and E. A. D. Lacerda},
      year={2025},
      eprint={2506.02224},
      archivePrefix={arXiv},
      primaryClass={astro-ph.HE},
      url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02224},
}