Gravitational waves and stalled satellites from massive galaxy mergers at z <= 1

Abstract

We present a model for merger-driven evolution of the mass function for massive galaxies and their central supermassive black holes at late times. We discuss the current observational evidence in favor of merger-driven massive galaxy evolution during this epoch, and demonstrate that the observed evolution of the mass function can be reproduced by evolving an initial mass function under the assumption of negligible star formation. We calculate the stochastic gravitational wave signal from the resulting black-hole binary mergers in the low redshift universe (z <= 1) implied by this model, and find that this population has a signal-to-noise ratio as much as ~5x larger than previous estimates for pulsar timing arrays, with an expectation value for the characteristic strain h_c (f=1 yr^{-1}) = 4.1 x 10^{-15} that may already be in tension with observational constraints, and a {2-sigma, 3-sigma} lower limit within this model of h_c (f=1 yr^{-1}) = {1.1 x 10^{-15}, 6.8 x 10^{-16}}. The strength of this signal is sufficient to make it detectable with high probability under conservative assumptions within the next several years, if the principle assumption of merger-driven galaxy evolution since z = 1 holds true. For cases where a galaxy merger fails to lead to a black hole merger, we estimate the probability for a given number of satellite unmerged black holes to remain within a massive host galaxy, and interpret the result in light of ULX observations. In particular, we find that the brightest cluster galaxies should have 1-2 such sources with luminosities above 10^{39} erg/s, which is consistent with the statistics of observed ULXs.

11 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJ, v2 includes the referee's requested changes

References in corpus (13)

• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• Revisiting the Scaling Relations of Black Hole Masses and Host Galaxy Properties
• An Observational Determination of the Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function
• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Systematic investigation of the expected gravitational wave signal from supermassive black hole binaries in the pulsar timing band
• Gravitational-wave Limits from Pulsar Timing Constrain Supermassive Black Hole Evolution
• The recycling of gas and metals in galaxy formation: predictions of a dynamical feedback model
• Wandering Black Holes in Bright Disk Galaxy Halos
• The contribution of star formation and merging to stellar mass buildup in galaxies
• MOIRCS Deep Survey IV: Evolution of Galaxy Stellar Mass Function Back to z ~ 3
• The Growth in Size and Mass of Cluster Galaxies since z=2
• The cosmic evolution of massive black holes and galaxy spheroids: global constraints at redshift z<~1.2
• The Most Massive Black Holes in the Universe: Effects of Mergers in Massive Galaxy Clusters

Cited by in corpus (66)

• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search For An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap
• European Pulsar Timing Array Limits On An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations
• The NANOGrav 11-year Data Set: Pulsar-timing Constraints On The Stochastic Gravitational-wave Background
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Limits on the Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background
• The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves
• Expected properties of the first gravitational wave signal detected with pulsar timing arrays
• Massive Black Hole Binary Mergers in Dynamical Galactic Environments
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Observations, Arrival Time Measurements, and Analysis of 37 Millisecond Pulsars
• The Gravitational Wave Background from Massive Black Hole Binaries in Illustris: spectral features and time to detection with pulsar timing arrays
• Testing Seesaw and Leptogenesis with Gravitational Waves
• A study of spatial correlations in pulsar timing array data
• Astrophysics Milestones For Pulsar Timing Array Gravitational Wave Detection
• Dynamical friction and the evolution of Supermassive Black hole Binaries: the final hundred-parsec problem
• Insights on the astrophysics of supermassive black hole binaries from pulsar timing observations
• Massive black hole merger rates: the effect of kpc separation wandering and supernova feedback
• Dancing to ChaNGa: A Self-Consistent Prediction For Close SMBH Pair Formation Timescales Following Galaxy Mergers
• Prospects for gravitational-wave detection and supermassive black hole astrophysics with pulsar timing arrays
• Interactions between multiple supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei: a solution to the final parsec problem
• Black Hole Mergers From Globular Clusters Observable by LISA II: Resolved Eccentric Sources and the Gravitational Wave Background
• Are we there yet? Time to detection of nanohertz gravitational waves based on pulsar-timing array limits
• The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: The first search for gravitational waves with the MeerKAT radio telescope
• Post-Newtonian evolution of massive black hole triplets in galactic nuclei -- III. A robust lower limit to the nHz stochastic background of gravitational waves
• All correlations must die: Assessing the significance of a stochastic gravitational-wave background in pulsar-timing arrays
• Massive BH Binaries as Periodically-Variable AGN
• Constraining the Solution to the Last Parsec Problem with Pulsar Timing
• Detection of eccentric supermassive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays: Signal-to-noise ratio calculations
• Understanding black hole mass assembly via accretion and mergers at late times in cosmological simulations
• Post-Newtonian dynamical modeling of supermassive black holes in galactic-scale simulations
• Pulsars and Gravity
• Constraints On The Dynamical Environments Of Supermassive Black-hole Binaries Using Pulsar-timing Arrays
• Dynamical evolution of cosmic supermassive binary black holes and their gravitational wave radiation
• Constraints on Black Hole/Host Galaxy Co-evolution and Binary Stalling Using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• The nightmare scenario: measuring the stochastic gravitational-wave background from stalling massive black-hole binaries with pulsar-timing arrays
• The NANOGrav 11-Year Data Set: Evolution of Gravitational Wave Background Statistics
• Probing the assembly history and dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays
• No tension between assembly models of supermassive black hole binaries and pulsar observations
• Gravitational Waves from the Inspiral of Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic-scale Simulations
• The minimum and maximum gravitational-wave background from supermassive binary black holes
• Statistics of Galactic-Scale Quasar Pairs at Cosmic Noon
• The Gravitational Wave Universe Toolbox: A software package to simulate observation of the Gravitational Wave Universe with different detectors
• Probing supermassive black hole mergers and stalling with pulsar timing arrays
• Evolution Of Massive Black Hole Binaries In Rotating Stellar Nuclei: Implications For Gravitational Wave Detection
• Cosmic variance in the nanohertz gravitational wave background
• Pulsar timing noise and the minimum observation time to detect gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays
• Pulsar timing arrays and the challenge of massive black hole binary astrophysics
• Implications of cosmologically coupled black holes for pulsar timing arrays
• Chandra X-ray and Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of Optically Selected Kiloparsec-Scale Binary Active Galactic Nuclei II: Host Galaxy Morphology and AGN Activity
• Gravitational waves from supermassive black hole binaries in ultra-luminous infrared galaxies
• Exploring Proxies for the Supermassive Black Hole Mass Function: Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Supermassive Black Hole Binary Environments: Effects on the Scaling Laws and Time to Detection for the Stochastic Background
• An estimate of the stochastic gravitational wave background from the MassiveBlackII simulation
• Radio pulsars: testing gravity and detecting gravitational waves
• The Impact of Black Hole Scaling Relation Assumptions on the Mass Density of Black Holes
• Sub-GeV dark matter and nano-Hertz gravitational waves from a classically conformal dark sector
• Reading signatures of supermassive binary black holes in pulsar timing array observations
• The Fates of Merging Supermassive Black Holes and a Proposal for a New Class of X-Ray Sources
• Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays of Sub-solar Black Hole Detections: From LVK to Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer
• Probing supermassive black hole scalarization with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Insights into Supermassive Black Hole Mergers from the Gravitational Wave Background
• Testing No slip model with pulsar timing arrays: NANOGrav and IPTA
• Cosmic Overture Echoed in a Stellar Final Act: Implications of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves for Core Collapse Supernova Neutrinos