The imprint of massive black hole formation models on the LISA data stream

By A. Sesana, M. Volonteri, F. Haardt. 2007

153 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The formation, merging and accretion history of massive black holes (MBHs) along the hierarchical build-up of cosmic structures leaves a unique imprint on the background of gravitational waves (GWs) at mHz frequencies. We study here, by means of dedicated simulations of black hole build-up, the possibility of constraining different models of black hole cosmic evolution using future GW space-borne missions, such as LISA. We consider two main scenarios for black hole formation, namely, one where seeds are light (� 10 2 M� , remnant of Population III stars) and one where seeds are heavy (10 4 M� , direct collapse). In all the models we have investigated, MBH binary coalescences do not produce a stochastic GW background, but rather, a set of individual resolved events. Detection of several hundreds merging events in a 3-yr LISA mission will be the sign of a heavy seed scenario with efficient formation of black hole seeds in a large fraction of high-redshift haloes. At the other extreme, a low event rate, about a few tens in 3 yr, is peculiar of scenarios where either the seeds are light, and many coalescences do not fall into the LISA band, or seeds are massive, but rare. In this case a decisive diagnostic is provided by the shape of the mass distribution of detected events. Light binaries (m < 10 4 M� ) are predicted in a fairly large number in Population III remnant models, but are totally absent in direct collapse models. Finally, a further, helpful diagnostic of black hole formation models lies in the distribution of the mass ratios in binary coalescences. While heavy seed models predict that most of the detected events involve equal-mass binaries, in the case of light seeds, mass ratios are equally distributed in the range 0.1‐1.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7531ca307dd8e4a480fcbf2a08b3d03b1bbf99c1

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Volker Bromm
2. M. Volonteri
3. Zoltán Haiman
4. S. Glover
5. Ralf Klessen
6. A. Ferrara
7. L. Hernquist
8. Tom Abel

Citations in the corpus

• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays (2008, methodology): “The subsequent merger and accretion history of black holes has a minor impact, by a factor <∼ 2, on the number of events, once the mass and the abundance of the seeds is defined (Sesana et al. 2007).”
• Titans of the early Universe: The Prato statement on the origin of the first supermassive black holes (2018, background): “The central problem is that the growth of black holes via mergers alone is unlikely to produce ∼109 M black holes by z ∼ 7 (e.g., Sesana et al. 2007; Tanaka & Haiman 2009; Natarajan 2011, see Section 4 for further discussion).”
• What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “…= 20) to reach 109 M ≈0.7 Gyr later at z = 6, assuming standard = 0.1 and continuous accretion at the Eddington limit, it must have started with Min ∼ 100 M (with the caveat that some additional growth can occur through BH-BH mergers; e.g., Sesana et al. 2007; Arun et al. 2009; Sereno et al. 2011).”
• Journey to the MBH-σ relation: the fate of low-mass black holes in the Universe (2009, methodology): “We refer the reader to Sesana et al. (2007) and Sesana et al. (2005) for a detailed discussion of how we model the gravitational wave emission and the expected event rate.”
• Cosmological Black Hole Spin Evolution by Mergers and Accretion (2008, background): “Cosmological BH evolution affects the rates of detectable events (Berti 2006; Sesana et al. 2007), data analysis strategies (Arnaud et al. 2007) and the science performance of the instrument, including its parameter estimation capabilities.”
• Doing Science with eLISA: Astrophysics and Cosmology in the Millihertz Regime (2012, background): “…coalescence rate in the eLISA window depends on the peculiar 31 of 81 details of the models, ranging from a handful up to few hundred events per year (Enoki et al., 2004, Haehnelt, 1994, Koushiappas and Zentner, 2006, Rhook and Wyithe, 2005, Sesana et al., 2004, 2005, 2007b, Wyithe and Loeb, 2003).”
• Black-hole binaries, gravitational waves, and numerical relativity (2010, background): “Initial models suitable for detection and (perhaps) parameter estimation of low-SNR signals, will require much further development for application to the high-SNR observations expected with future instrument upgrades, such as Advanced LIGO, and future instruments such as LISA.”
• Formation of supermassive black holes (2010, background): “Sesana et al (2007) and Arun et al (2009) analyze merger histories of MBHs along the hierarchical build–up of cosmic structures (Volonteri et al, 2003).”
• The evolution of massive black hole seeds (2007, background): “In a hierarchical Universe, where galaxies grow by mergers, MBH mergers are a natural consequence, and we trace their contribution to the evolving MBH population (cfr. Sesana et al. 2007 for details on the dynamical modeling).”
• THE ASSEMBLY OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AT HIGH REDSHIFTS (2008, background): “It is therefore a useful exercise to calculate the expected LISA event rate from high-redshift SMBH mergers (e.g., Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Sesana et al. 2004, 2005, 2007) in a range of plausible models.”