Detecting eccentric supermassive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays: Resolvable source strategies

Abstract

The couplings between supermassive black-hole binaries and their environments within galactic nuclei have been well studied as part of the search for solutions to the final parsec problem. The scattering of stars by the binary or the interaction with a circumbinary disk may efficiently drive the system to sub-parsec separations, allowing the binary to enter a regime where the emission of gravitational waves can drive it to merger within a Hubble time. However, these interactions can also affect the orbital parameters of the binary. In particular, they may drive an increase in binary eccentricity which survives until the system's gravitational-wave signal enters the pulsar-timing array band. Therefore, if we can measure the eccentricity from observed signals, we can potentially deduce some of the properties of the binary environment. To this end, we build on previous techniques to present a general Bayesian pipeline with which we can detect and estimate the parameters of an eccentric supermassive black-hole binary system with pulsar-timing arrays. Additionally, we generalize the pulsar-timing array ${\mathcal{F}}_e$-statistic to eccentric systems, and show that both this statistic and the Bayesian pipeline are robust when studying circular or arbitrarily eccentric systems. We explore how eccentricity influences the detection prospects of single gravitational-wave sources, as well as the detection penalty incurred by employing a circular waveform template to search for eccentric signals, and conclude by identifying important avenues for future study.

15 pages, 13 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ. New results on expected binary measurement precisions as a function of signal-to-noise (Fig 9)

References in corpus (18)

• TEMPO2, a new pulsar timing package. I: Overview
• Tempo2, a new pulsar timing package. II: The timing model and precision estimates
• Comparison of post-Newtonian templates for compact binary inspiral signals in gravitational-wave detectors
• Gravitational waves from resolvable massive black hole binary systems and observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Expected properties of the first gravitational wave signal detected with pulsar timing arrays
• LISA detections of massive black hole inspirals: parameter extraction errors due to inaccurate template waveforms
• On measuring the gravitational-wave background using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• The final-parsec problem in the collisionless limit
• Measuring the parameters of massive black hole binary systems with Pulsar Timing Array observations of gravitational waves
• Self consistent model for the evolution of eccentric massive black hole binaries in stellar environments: implications for gravitational wave observations
• NANOGrav Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Circular Orbits
• New advances in the Gaussian-process approach to pulsar-timing data analysis
• Interaction of massive black hole binaries with their stellar environment: III. Scattering of bound stars
• Detection of eccentric supermassive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays: Signal-to-noise ratio calculations
• Detection and localization of single-source gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays
• Estimating the sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays
• Observing the dynamics of super-massive black hole binaries with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Accelerated Bayesian model-selection and parameter-estimation in continuous gravitational-wave searches with pulsar-timing arrays

Cited by in corpus (45)

• The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves
• The NANOGrav 11-Year Data Set: Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Bayesian Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Single Sources in the Low-Frequency Gravitational Wave Sky: properties and time to detection by pulsar timing arrays
• The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: The first search for gravitational waves with the MeerKAT radio telescope
• From Bright Binaries To Bumpy Backgrounds: Mapping Realistic Gravitational Wave Skies With Pulsar-Timing Arrays
• Constraining astrophysical observables of Galaxy and Supermassive Black Hole Binary Mergers using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Orbital Evolution of Binaries in Circumbinary Disks
• Post-Newtonian evolution of massive black hole triplets in galactic nuclei -- III. A robust lower limit to the nHz stochastic background of gravitational waves
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array V. Search for continuous gravitational wave signals
• Efficient computation of the gravitational wave spectrum emitted by eccentric massive black hole binaries in stellar environments
• Multi-messenger Time-domain Signatures Of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Detection and localization of continuous gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays: the role of pulsar terms
• Prospects for Future Binary Black Hole GW Studies in Light of PTA Measurements
• Signatures of the Many Supermassive Black Hole Mergers in a Cosmologically Forming Massive Early-Type Galaxy
• Blind spots and biases: the dangers of ignoring eccentricity in gravitational-wave signals from binary black holes
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Bayesian Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• A synthetic model of the gravitational wave background from evolving binary compact objects
• Constraints on Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from Pulsar Timing Array Limits on Continuous Gravitational Waves
• Quasars with Periodic Variability: Capabilities and Limitations of Bayesian Searches for Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Time-Domain Surveys
• Pulsar timing array signals induced by black hole binaries in relativistic eccentric orbits
• Amplification of superkicks in black-hole binaries through orbital eccentricity
• Status Report on Global Pulsar-Timing-Array Efforts to Detect Gravitational Waves
• Identifying Host Galaxies of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Found by PTAs
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year data set: A computationally efficient eccentric binary search pipeline and constraints on an eccentric supermassive binary candidate in 3C 66B
• Null stream analysis of Pulsar Timing Array data: localisation of resolvable gravitational wave sources
• Radio pulsars: testing gravity and detecting gravitational waves
• On Detecting Nearby Nano-Hertz Gravitational Wave Sources via Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Using Gravitational Wave Parallax to Measure the Hubble Parameter with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Resolving the nano-Hz gravitational wave sky: the detectability of eccentric binaries with PTA experiments
• Post-Newtonian-accurate pulsar timing array signals induced by inspiralling eccentric binaries: accuracy, computational cost, and single-pulsar search
• Constraints on individual supermassive binary black holes using observations of PSR J1909-3744
• Precision of localization of single gravitational-wave source with pulsar timing array
• Parameter-Estimation Biases for Eccentric Supermassive Binary Black Holes in Pulsar Timing Arrays: Biases Caused by Ignored Pulsar Terms
• Efficient Bayesian inference and model selection for continuous gravitational waves in pulsar timing array data
• Host Galaxy Demographics Of Individually Detectable Supermassive Black-hole Binaries with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Toward Astrometric Constraints on a Supermassive Black Hole Binary in the Early-Type Galaxy NGC\,4472
• Detection of eccentric close-binary supermassive black holes with incomplete interferometric data
• Constraints on ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves from an eccentric supermassive black hole binary
• Realistic assessment of a single gravitational wave source localization taking into account precise pulsar distances with pulsar timing arrays
• Eccentric Pairs: Analytic Gravitational Waves from Binary Black Holes in Elliptic Orbits
• Searching for continuous gravitational waves in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 3
• Fast Bayesian analysis of individual binaries in pulsar timing array data
• Binary black hole signatures in polarized light curves
• Upper limits on microhertz gravitational waves from supermassive black-hole binaries using PSR J1909-3744 data from the second IPTA data release