A Shining Death of Unequal Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Authors: Chen, Xian; Lin, D. N. C.; Zhang, Xiaojia
Abstract
In the ?CDM scenario, small galaxies merge to produce larger entities. Since supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are found in galaxies of all sizes, SMBH binaries (SMBHBs) are generally expected to form during the amalgamation of galaxies. It is unclear what fraction of these binaries could eventually merge, but a general consensus is that initially the orbital decay is mediated by the surrounding gas and stars. In this Letter, we show that in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) the radiation field also causes the orbits of the accreting SMBHs to shrink. The corresponding mechanism, known as the "Poynting-Robertson drag" (PR drag), takes effect on a well-defined timescale CTSal, where T-Sal is the Salpeter timescale of the AGN, presumably coinciding with the primary SMBH, and epsilon, the mass ratio q of the two black holes, and a parameter xi characterizing the size of the circumsecondary accretion disk. We find that when q less than or similar to a few x 10(-5), the PR drag is more efficient in shrinking the binary than many other mechanisms, such as dynamical friction and type-I migration. Our finding points to a possible new channel for the coalescence of unequal SMBHBs and the clearing of intermediate-massive black holes in AGNs.
Salidroside alleviates acute liver injury through mitochondrial protection and anti-oxidative effects
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE
Authors: Lyu, Xue; Song, Wenhui; Yu, Chaoqun; Wang, Daiwei; Wang, Bin; Di, Guohu
Abstract
Accumulating evidence has indicated the anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effect of salidroside (SAL) on acute liver injury; however, the cytoprotection and underlying mechanisms of SAL remained elusive. The aim of our present research was to evaluate the hepatoprotective effect of SAL through carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)induced hepatic injury model and H2O2-induced oxidative injury model in a normal human liver cell line L-02. In vivo, the results revealed that SAL reduced serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and alanine aminotransferase (AST) levels, accompanied with ameliorated histopathological changes. In vitro, SAL increased cell viability, inhibited cell apoptosis, reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and recovered mitochondrial membrane potential when compared to the H2O2, group. In addition, SAL treatment up-regulated the expressions of antioxidant-related genes including hemeoxygenase-1 (HO-1), nuclear factor erythroid 2 related factor (Nrf2), manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) and catalase (CAT), and down-regulated NADPH oxidase isoform 2 (NOX-2). Taken together, these results demonstrated that SAL could relieve CCl4-induced liver damage and H2O2-induced oxidative injury by mitochondrial protection and oxidative stress suppression, suggesting that SAL could be a potential agent for treating or preventing acute liver injury.