The Local Nanohertz Gravitational-Wave Landscape From Supermassive Black Hole Binaries

Abstract

Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) in the 10 million to 10 billion $M_{\odot }$ range form in galaxy mergers, and live in galactic nuclei with large and poorly constrained concentrations of gas and stars. There are currently no observations of merging SMBHBs--- it is in fact possible that they stall at their final parsec of separation and never merge. While LIGO has detected high frequency GWs, SMBHBs emit GWs in the nanohertz to millihertz band. This is inaccessible to ground-based interferometers, but possible with Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs). Using data from local galaxies in the 2 Micron All-Sky Survey, together with galaxy merger rates from Illustris, we find that there are on average $91\pm 7$ sources emitting GWs in the PTA band, and $7\pm 2$ binaries which will never merge. Local unresolved SMBHBs can contribute to GW background anisotropy at a level of $\sim 20\%$, and if the GW background can be successfully isolated, GWs from at least one local SMBHB can be detected in 10 years.

arXiv commentsubmitted to Nature Astronomy (reformatted for arXiv)

References in corpus (45)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• HEALPix -- a Framework for High Resolution Discretization, and Fast Analysis of Data Distributed on the Sphere
• The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Simulating the joint evolution of quasars, galaxies and their large-scale distribution
• The hierarchical formation of the brightest cluster galaxies
• Revisiting the Scaling Relations of Black Hole Masses and Host Galaxy Properties
• Introducing the Illustris Project: the evolution of galaxy populations across cosmic time
• 2MASS Extended Source Catalog: Overview and Algorithms
• Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei: Past, Present and Future Research
• The merger rate of galaxies in the Illustris Simulation: a comparison with observations and semi-empirical models
• The 2MASS Redshift Survey - Description and Data Release
• European Pulsar Timing Array Limits On An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• The dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries - I. Hardening in a fixed stellar background
• Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations
• High-precision timing of 42 millisecond pulsars with the European Pulsar Timing Array
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: First Data Release
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Limits on the Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background
• Groups of Galaxies in the Two Micron All-Sky Redshift Survey
• European Pulsar Timing Array Limits on Continuous Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Observations, Arrival Time Measurements, and Analysis of 37 Millisecond Pulsars
• The MASSIVE Survey - I. A Volume-Limited Integral-Field Spectroscopic Study of the Most Massive Early-Type Galaxies within 108 Mpc
• Mass Accretion Rates and Histories of Dark Matter Haloes
• The First Two Years of Electromagnetic Follow-Up with Advanced LIGO and Virgo
• From star clusters to dwarf galaxies: The properties of dynamically hot stellar systems
• Characterising gravitational wave stochastic background anisotropy with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Effect of environment on galaxies mass-size distribution: unveiling the transition from outside-in to inside-out evolution
• Scattering experiments meet N-body I: a practical recipe for the evolution of massive black hole binaries in stellar environments
• Mapping gravitational-wave backgrounds using methods from CMB analysis: Application to pulsar timing arrays
• NANOGrav Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Circular Orbits
• Searching For Anisotropic Gravitational-wave Backgrounds Using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Optimal strategies for continuous gravitational wave detection in pulsar timing arrays
• Are we there yet? Time to detection of nanohertz gravitational waves based on pulsar-timing array limits
• The Scaling of Stellar Mass and Central Stellar Velocity Dispersion for Quiescent galaxies at z < 0.7
• Selection bias in dynamically-measured super-massive black hole samples: consequences for pulsar timing arrays
• Limits on anisotropy in the nanohertz stochastic gravitational-wave background
• MeerKAT Key Project Science, Specifications, and Proposals
• The effect of small inter-pulsar distance variations in stochastic gravitational wave background searches with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Constraints on Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from Pulsar Timing Array Limits on Continuous Gravitational Waves
• Pulsar Timing Errors from Asynchronous Multi-Frequency Sampling of Dispersion Measure Variations
• Targeting supermassive black hole binaries and gravitational wave sources for the pulsar timing array
• Gravitational Wave Hotspots: Ranking Potential Locations of Single-Source Gravitational Wave Emission
• Discovery of a Flat-Spectrum Radio Nucleus in NGC 3115
• Mapping the nano-Hertz gravitational wave sky

Cited by in corpus (105)

• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• 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
• Gravitational waves induced by scalar perturbations as probes of the small-scale primordial spectrum
• 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
• The Missing Link in Gravitational-Wave Astronomy: Discoveries waiting in the decihertz range
• Electromagnetic Counterparts to Massive Black Hole Mergers
• The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: The first search for gravitational waves with the MeerKAT radio telescope
• Constraining astrophysical observables of Galaxy and Supermassive Black Hole Binary Mergers using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• From Bright Binaries To Bumpy Backgrounds: Mapping Realistic Gravitational Wave Skies With Pulsar-Timing Arrays
• 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
• Dynamical Friction Modeling of Massive Black Holes in Cosmological Simulations and Effects on Merger Rate Predictions
• The Black Hole Explorer: Motivation and Vision
• Multi-messenger Probes of Inflationary Fluctuations and Primordial Black Holes
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year data set: Search for Non-Einsteinian Polarization Modes in theGravitational-Wave Background
• 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
• Pulsar-timing arrays, astrometry, and gravitational waves
• Multi-messenger Time-domain Signatures Of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• A Triple AGN in a Mid-Infrared Selected Late Stage Galaxy Merger
• Repeated Imaging of Massive Black Hole Binary Orbits with Millimeter Interferometry: measuring black hole masses and the Hubble constant
• Fisher formalism for anisotropic gravitational-wave background searches with pulsar timing arrays
• A quasar-based supermassive black hole binary population model: implications for the gravitational-wave background
• The NANOGrav Program for Gravitational Waves and Fundamental Physics
• Insights into searches for anisotropies in the nanohertz gravitational-wave background
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Bayesian Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Unveiling sub-parsec supermassive black hole binary candidates in active galactic nuclei
• Mapping the Gravitational-wave Sky with LISA: A Bayesian Spherical Harmonic Approach
• The NANOGrav 11yr Data Set: Limits on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Galaxies within 500Mpc
• Gravitational Wave Detection with Photometric Surveys
• Massive Black Hole Mergers with Orbital Information: Predictions from the ASTRID Simulation
• Joint search for isolated sources and an unresolved confusion background in pulsar timing array data
• Accelerated orbital decay of supermassive black hole binaries in merging nuclear star clusters
• Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Identifies an $r_p$ = 1 Kpc Dual Active Galactic Nucleus in the Minor Galaxy Merger SDSS J0924+0510 at z = 0.1495
• The Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Astronomer
• On the Amplitude and Stokes Parameters of a Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Kinematic signatures of reverberation mapping of close binaries of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei
• The high energy universe at ultra-high resolution: the power and promise of X-ray interferometry
• VLBI studies of DAGN and SMBHB hosting galaxies
• Sensitivity of present and future detectors across the black-hole binary gravitational wave spectrum
• Multi-messenger Approaches to Supermassive Black Hole Binary Detection and Parameter Estimation: Implications for Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Searches with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Multimessenger pulsar timing array constraints on supermassive black hole binaries traced by periodic light curves
• Post-Merger Jets from Supermassive Black Hole Coalescences as Electromagnetic Counterparts of Gravitational Wave Emission
• Probing supermassive black hole mergers and stalling with pulsar timing arrays
• Associating Host Galaxy Candidates to Massive Black Hole Binaries resolved by Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Optimizing Pulsar Timing Arrays Observations for Detection and Characterization of Low-Frequency Gravitational Wave Sources
• Considerations for the Observability of Kinematically Offset Binary AGN
• 21st Century Statistical and Computational Challenges in Astrophysics
• Exploring Proxies for the Supermassive Black Hole Mass Function: Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Gravitational waves from supermassive black hole binaries in ultra-luminous infrared galaxies
• Disentangling Multiple Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background Sources in PTA Datasets
• Kinematic signatures of reverberation mapping of close binaries of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei III. The case of elliptical orbits
• The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: Maps of the gravitational-wave sky with the 4.5 year data release
• Spectral Energy Distributions of Candidate Periodically-Variable Quasars: Testing the Binary Black Hole Hypothesis
• Identifying Host Galaxies of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Found by PTAs
• Beyond the Hellings-Downs curve: Non-Einsteinian gravitational waves in pulsar timing array correlations
• 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
• Reliable Identification of Binary Supermassive Black Holes from Rubin Observatory Time-Domain Monitoring
• The (Black Hole Mass)-(Spheroid Stellar Density) Relations: $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$\mu$ (and $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$\Sigma$) and $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$\rho$
• Supermassive Binary Black Hole Evolution can be traced by a small SKA Pulsar Timing Array
• Pulsar Timing Array Experiments
• Correlations for an anisotropic polarized stochastic gravitational wave background in pulsar timing arrays
• Intrinsic and observed dual AGN fractions from major mergers
• Examining the effects of dark matter spikes on eccentric intermediate mass ratio inspirals using N-body simulations
• Measuring kinematic anisotropies with pulsar timing arrays
• A hadronic emission model for black hole-disc impacts in the blazar OJ 287
• On Detecting Nearby Nano-Hertz Gravitational Wave Sources via Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Differential Interferometric Signatures of Close Binaries of Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Proving the short-wavelength approximation in Pulsar Timing Array gravitational-wave background searches
• Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations I: Unique Galaxy Morphologies in Imaging
• Constraints on individual supermassive binary black holes using observations of PSR J1909-3744
• Cosmic variance of the Hellings and Downs correlation for ensembles of universes having nonzero angular power spectra
• The ASTRID Simulation at z=0: From Massive Black Holes to Large-scale Structure
• Parameter-Estimation Biases for Eccentric Supermassive Binary Black Holes in Pulsar Timing Arrays: Biases Caused by Ignored Pulsar Terms
• Seeing the gravitational wave universe
• Host Galaxy Demographics Of Individually Detectable Supermassive Black-hole Binaries with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Efficient Bayesian inference and model selection for continuous gravitational waves in pulsar timing array data
• The missing link in gravitational-wave astronomy: A summary of discoveries waiting in the decihertz range
• Astrometry meets Pulsar Timing Arrays: Synergies for Gravitational Wave Detection
• Astrophysics with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Very Large Array imaging rules out precessing radio jets in three DES$-$SDSS-selected candidate periodic quasars
• Toward Astrometric Constraints on a Supermassive Black Hole Binary in the Early-Type Galaxy NGC\,4472
• Solar System Ephemerides, Pulsar Timing, Gravitational Waves, and Navigation
• Gravitational Waves, Extreme Astrophysics, and Fundamental Physics with Precision Pulsar Timing
• Properties of loss cone stars in a cosmological galaxy merger remnant
• Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations II: Unique Stellar Kinematics in Integral Field Unit Spectroscopy
• Damping of long wavelength gravitational waves by the intergalactic medium
• Precision Timing of PSR J0437-4715 with the IAR Observatory and Implications for Low-Frequency Gravitational Wave Source Sensitivity
• Dissecting the nanohertz gravitational wave sky: Frequency-correlated anisotropy induced by eccentric supermassive black hole binaries
• Ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves from individual supermassive black hole binaries as standard sirens
• A nontrivial footprint of standard cosmology in the future observations of low-frequency gravitational waves
• Rapid Construction of Joint Pulsar Timing Array Datasets: The Lite Method
• Controlling Outlier Contamination In Multimessenger Time-domain Searches For Supermasssive Binary Black Holes
• The Host Galaxies of PTA Sources: Converting Supermassive BH Binary Parameters into EM Observables
• The Indian Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 2: II. Customised Single-Pulsar Noise Analysis and Noise Budget
• Exploring the anisotropic gravitational wave background from all-sky mock gravitational wave event catalogues
• Ultra-Low Frequency Gravitational Waves from Massive Clusters at z~1
• A Population Study for Searching Supermassive Binary Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei: Continuum Spectral Features and Periodic Variabilities
• Exploring realistic nanohertz gravitational-wave backgrounds
• Testing No slip model with pulsar timing arrays: NANOGrav and IPTA