Gravitational Waves Probe the Coalescence Rate of Massive Black Hole Binaries

By Andrew H. Jaffe, D. Backer. 2002

329 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We calculate the expected nHz-μHz gravitational wave (GW) spectrum from coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries resulting from mergers of their host galaxies. We consider detection of this spectrum by precision pulsar timing and a future pulsar timing array. The spectrum depends on the merger rate of massive galaxies, the demographics of MBHs at low and high redshift, and the dynamics of MBH binaries. We apply recent theoretical and observational work on all of these fronts. The spectrum has a characteristic strain hc(f) ~ 10-15(f/yr-1)-2/3, just below the detection limit from recent analysis of precision pulsar timing measurements. However, the amplitude of the spectrum is still very uncertain owing to approximations in the theoretical formulation of the model, to our lack of knowledge of the merger rate and MBH population at high redshift, and to the dynamical problem of removing enough angular momentum from the MBH binary to reach a GW-dominated regime.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e13e3d605c4c69ad6655da5204c47b51733c3ce1

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. A. Sesana
2. L. Hernquist
3. G. Hobbs
4. M. Volonteri
5. R. Manchester
6. P. Hopkins
7. Michael Kramer
8. Abraham Loeb

Citations in the corpus

• Detecting the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background Using Pulsar Timing (2005, unknown): “With the same qualifiers, increasing the total time span of the PPTA to 10 years would yield a significance greater than 4 for .”
• EFFICIENT MERGER OF BINARY SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES IN MERGING GALAXIES (2011, methodology): “…for LISA is to equate the binary SMBH coalescence rate with the galaxy merger rate, the latter derived from models of structure formation in which galaxies merge hierarchically (Haehnelt 1994; Menou, Haiman & Narayanan 2001; Volonteri, Haardt & Madau 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Jaffe & Backer 2003).”
• The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational-wave Background (2023, background): “…(10 yr)−1, Respectively Model Ayr 16th Ayr 84th A10yr 16th A10yr 84th (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Rajagopal & Romani (1995) 9.32E−17 2.41E−16 5.31E−16 1.28E−15 Jaffe & Backer (2003) 8.10E−17 1.50E−16 3.75E−16 6.93E−16 Wyithe & Loeb (2003) 4.77E−16 8.84E−16 2.22E−15 3.89E−15 Enoki et al. (2004) 4.70E−16…”
• European Pulsar Timing Array Limits On An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background (2015, background): “For a GWB resulting from inspiralling SMBHBs, the characteristic strain is approximately hc(f) ∝ f−2/3 (Rajagopal & Romani 1995; Jaffe & Backer 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Sesana et al. 2004), or equivalently, γ = 13/3, whereas primordial background contributions or cosmic strings are expected to…”
• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays (2008, background): “Early works (Rajagopal & Romani 1995, hereafter R&R, and Jaffe & Backer 2003, hereafter J&B) derived the MBHB coalescence rate from available observational constraints on the fraction of galaxies that form kinematically close pairs in the local universe (Burkey et al. 1994, Colin Schramann &…”
• The NANOGrav 11-year Data Set: High-precision Timing of 45 Millisecond Pulsars (2017, background): “An expected signal in this band is the incoherent superposition of gravitational waves from the cosmic merger history of supermassive black hole binaries, i.e., a gravitational-wave background (Phinney 2001; Jaffe & Backer 2003; Sesana 2013).”
• The Cosmic Energy Inventory (2004, background): “…of the gravitational radiation from merging massive black holes, and the puzzle of how merging black holes get close enough that energy loss by gravitational radiation drives merging within a Hubble time, are discussed by Hughes et al. (2001), Jaffe & Backer (2003) and Wyithe & Loeb (2003).”
• ASSESSING THE ROLE OF SPIN NOISE IN THE PRECISION TIMING OF MILLISECOND PULSARS (2010, background): “The MBH background is presently considered the strongest plausible GWB, and is expected to induce a strain response of hc(f) = A0(f/1 yr −1)−2/3, where the value of A0 is estimated to be between 10−16 and 10−15 (Jaffe & Backer 2003; Sesana & Vecchio 2010).”
• The basics of gravitational wave theory (2005, background): “It is possible that the background in this band will be dominated by many unresolved coalescing massive binary black holes [105]—binaries that are either too massive to radiate in the LISA band, or else are in-spiralling towards the LISA band en route to a final merger several centuries or millenia ”
• Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves from Massive Black Hole Binaries: Predictions for LISA and Pulsar Timing Arrays (2002, methodology): “The thick dashed line shows the spectrum deduced by Jaffe & Backer (2003).”