The Gravitational Wave Background from Massive Black Hole Binaries in Illustris: spectral features and time to detection with pulsar timing arrays

Abstract

Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTA) around the world are using the incredible consistency of millisecond pulsars to measure low frequency gravitational waves from (super)Massive Black Hole (MBH) binaries. We use comprehensive MBH merger models based on cosmological hydrodynamic simulations to predict the spectrum of the stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background (GWB). We use real Time-of-Arrival (TOA) specifications from the European, NANOGrav, Parkes, and International PTA (IPTA) to calculate realistic times to detection of the GWB across a wide range of model parameters. In addition to exploring the parameter space of environmental hardening processes (in particular: stellar scattering efficiencies), we have expanded our models to include eccentric binary evolution which can have a strong effect on the GWB spectrum. Our models show that strong stellar scattering and high characteristic eccentricities enhance the GWB strain amplitude near the PTA sensitive "sweet-spot" (near the frequency $f=1{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$), slightly improving detection prospects in these cases. While the GWB $amplitude$ is degenerate between cosmological and environmental parameters, the location of a spectral turnover at low frequencies ($f\lesssim 0.1{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$) is strongly indicative of environmental coupling. At high frequencies ($f\gtrsim 1{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$), the GWB spectral index can be used to infer the number density of sources and possibly their eccentricity distribution. Even with merger models that use pessimistic environmental and eccentricity parameters, if the current rate of PTA expansion continues, we find that the International PTA is highly likely to make a detection within about 10 years.

21 pages, 1 table, 18 figures; comments welcomed. v2: updated figures and calculations (times-to-detections changed), added author S.R.Taylor

References in corpus (21)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Introducing the Illustris Project: Simulating the coevolution of dark and visible matter in the Universe
• Properties of galaxies reproduced by a hydrodynamic simulation
• Introducing the Illustris Project: the evolution of galaxy populations across cosmic time
• The Illustris simulation: the evolving population of black holes across cosmic time
• Biases in Virial Black Hole Masses: An SDSS Perspective
• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Massive black hole binary mergers within sub-pc scale gas discs
• The Population of Viscosity- and Gravitational Wave-Driven Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Among Luminous AGN
• Expected properties of the first gravitational wave signal detected with pulsar timing arrays
• Interaction of massive black hole binaries with their stellar environment: I. Ejection of hypervelocity stars
• Dynamics of triple black hole systems in hierarchically merging massive galaxies
• Self consistent model for the evolution of eccentric massive black hole binaries in stellar environments: implications for gravitational wave observations
• The Effect of Orbital Eccentricity on Gravitational Wave Background Radiation from Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Binary super-massive black hole environments diminish the gravitational-wave signal in the pulsar timing band
• Constraints On The Dynamical Environments Of Supermassive Black-hole Binaries Using Pulsar-timing Arrays
• Efficient computation of the gravitational wave spectrum emitted by eccentric massive black hole binaries in stellar environments
• Estimating the sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays
• Detecting a Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background: The Overlap Reduction Function
• Probing the assembly history and dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays
• Supermassive Black Hole Binary Environments: Effects on the Scaling Laws and Time to Detection for the Stochastic Background

Cited by in corpus (108)

• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search For An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap
• Supermassive black holes and their feedback effects in the IllustrisTNG simulation
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• The International Pulsar Timing Array second data release: Search for an isotropic Gravitational Wave Background
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: Second data release
• The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves
• Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: Inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search
• Post-Newtonian Evolution of Massive Black Hole Triplets in Galactic Nuclei: IV. Implications for LISA
• Multimessenger Signatures of Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies
• On the orbital evolution of supermassive black hole binaries with circumbinary accretion discs
• Circumbinary Accretion from Finite and Infinite Disks
• Gas-driven inspiral of binaries in thin accretion disks
• Anisotropy of the astrophysical gravitational wave background: analytic expression of the angular power spectrum and correlation with cosmological observations
• Astrophysics Milestones For Pulsar Timing Array Gravitational Wave Detection
• Single Sources in the Low-Frequency Gravitational Wave Sky: properties and time to detection by pulsar timing arrays
• Probing Anisotropies of the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background with LISA
• First predictions of the angular power spectrum of the astrophysical gravitational wave background
• Massive black hole merger rates: the effect of kpc separation wandering and supernova feedback
• Science with the TianQin Observatory: Preliminary Results on Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Black Hole Mergers From Globular Clusters Observable by LISA II: Resolved Eccentric Sources and the Gravitational Wave Background
• Constraining astrophysical observables of Galaxy and Supermassive Black Hole Binary Mergers using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Realistic sensitivity curves for pulsar timing arrays
• First-order Phase Transition interpretation of PTA signal produces solar-mass Black Holes
• The Need For Speed: Rapid Refitting Techniques for Bayesian Spectral Characterization of the Gravitational Wave Background Using PTAs
• Post-Newtonian evolution of massive black hole triplets in galactic nuclei -- III. A robust lower limit to the nHz stochastic background of gravitational waves
• Testing the binary hypothesis: pulsar timing constraints on supermassive black hole binary candidates
• Probing Massive Black Hole Binary Populations with LISA
• Massive BH Binaries as Periodically-Variable AGN
• Constraining Sub-Parsec Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Quasars with Multi-Epoch Spectroscopy. III. Candidates from Continued Radial Velocity Tests
• Variance of the Hellings-Downs Correlation
• Massive black hole evolution models confronting the n-Hz amplitude of the stochastic gravitational wave background
• Gravitational Waves from SMBH Binaries in Light of the NANOGrav 15-Year Data
• Properties of the stochastic astrophysical gravitational wave background: astrophysical sources dependencies
• From galactic nuclei to the halo outskirts: tracing supermassive black holes across cosmic history and environments
• Can supercooled phase transitions explain the gravitational wave background observed by pulsar timing arrays?
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year data set: Search for Non-Einsteinian Polarization Modes in theGravitational-Wave Background
• Pulsar-timing arrays, astrometry, and gravitational waves
• Discovery of a close-separation binary quasar at the heart of a z~0.2 merging galaxy and its implications for low-frequency gravitational waves
• Ultra-low frequency gravitational waves from cosmological and astrophysical processes
• Gravitational wave research using pulsar timing arrays
• Dynamical evolution of cosmic supermassive binary black holes and their gravitational wave radiation
• The $N_{\ell }$ of gravitational wave background experiments
• Forecasting pulsar timing array sensitivity to anisotropy in the stochastic gravitational wave background
• A Triple AGN in a Mid-Infrared Selected Late Stage Galaxy Merger
• Polarization of a stochastic gravitational wave background through diffusion by massive structures
• Mirror QCD phase transition as the origin of the nanohertz Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• The NANOGrav 11-Year Data Set: Evolution of Gravitational Wave Background Statistics
• Repeated Imaging of Massive Black Hole Binary Orbits with Millimeter Interferometry: measuring black hole masses and the Hubble constant
• The nightmare scenario: measuring the stochastic gravitational-wave background from stalling massive black-hole binaries with pulsar-timing arrays
• 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
• The effect of differential accretion on the Gravitational Wave Background and the present day MBH Binary population
• The NANOGrav Program for Gravitational Waves and Fundamental Physics
• Pulsar timing residual induced by ultralight vector dark matter
• The competing effect of gas and stars in massive black hole binaries evolution
• Insights into searches for anisotropies in the nanohertz gravitational-wave background
• Gravitational Self-Lensing in Populations of Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Intensity and anisotropies of the stochastic Gravitational Wave background from merging compact binaries in galaxies
• Resolving the Complex Evolution of a Supermassive Black Hole Triplet in a Cosmological Simulation
• The Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Astronomer
• Cosmological simulations of massive black hole seeds: predictions for next generation electromagnetic and gravitational wave observations
• Pulsar timing array signals induced by black hole binaries in relativistic eccentric orbits
• 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
• KETJU -- resolving small-scale supermassive black hole dynamics in GADGET-4
• Considerations for the Observability of Kinematically Offset Binary AGN
• Implications of cosmologically coupled black holes for pulsar timing arrays
• Spectral Energy Distributions of Candidate Periodically-Variable Quasars: Testing the Binary Black Hole Hypothesis
• The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Looking for Signs of Discreteness in the Gravitational-wave Background
• Morphological evolution of supermassive black hole merger hosts and multimessenger signatures
• 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
• How to Detect an Astrophysical Nanohertz Gravitational-Wave Background
• Eccentricity effects on the supermassive black hole gravitational wave background
• An estimate of the stochastic gravitational wave background from the MassiveBlackII simulation
• Pulsar Timing Array Experiments
• Dynamics and spin alignment in massive, gravito-turbulent circumbinary discs around supermassive black hole binaries
• Multimessenger Approaches to Supermassive Black Hole Binary Detection and Parameter Estimation II: Optimal Strategies for a Pulsar Timing Array
• Detecting the Orbital Motion of Nearby Supermassive Black Hole Binaries with Gaia
• The Pairing Probability of Massive Black Holes in Merger Galaxies in the Presence of Radiative Feedback
• Distinctive GWBs from eccentric inspiraling SMBH binaries with a DM spike
• Post-Newtonian-accurate pulsar timing array signals induced by inspiralling eccentric binaries: accuracy, computational cost, and single-pulsar search
• Evolution of a black hole cluster in full general relativity
• Fast Likelihood-free Reconstruction of Gravitational Wave Backgrounds
• 2MASX J00423991+3017515: An offset active galactic nucleus in an interacting system
• Signals of merging supermassive primordial black holes in pulsar timing arrays
• Predictions for LISA and PTA based on SHARK galaxy simulations
• Prospects of Probing Dark Matter Condensates with Gravitational Waves
• Neural Networks unveiling the properties of gravitational wave background from massive black hole binaries
• On the detectability of massive black hole merger eventsby LISA
• Host Galaxy Demographics Of Individually Detectable Supermassive Black-hole Binaries with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Reading signatures of supermassive binary black holes in pulsar timing array observations
• Astrophysics with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Realistic consecutive galaxy mergers form eccentric PTA sources
• Premature supermassive black hole mergers in cosmological simulations of structure formation
• Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays of Sub-solar Black Hole Detections: From LVK to Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer
• Can asteroid-mass PBHDM be compatible with catalyzed phase transition interpretation of PTA?
• Dissecting the nanohertz gravitational wave sky: Frequency-correlated anisotropy induced by eccentric supermassive black hole binaries
• Detection of eccentric close-binary supermassive black holes with incomplete interferometric data
• Controlling Outlier Contamination In Multimessenger Time-domain Searches For Supermasssive Binary Black Holes
• Probing the mass relation between supermassive black holes and dark matter halos at high redshifts by gravitational wave experiments
• Efficient prescription to search for linear gravitational wave memory from hyperbolic black hole encounters and its application to the NANOGrav 12.5-year dataset
• Gravitational wave signal from primordial magnetic fields in the Pulsar Timing Array frequency band
• Rapid sinking and efficient mergers of supermassive black holes in compact high-redshift galaxies
• Astro2020 Science White Paper: Black Hole Growth in Mergers and Dual AGN
• Exploring realistic nanohertz gravitational-wave backgrounds