Implications of cosmologically coupled black holes for pulsar timing arrays

Abstract

It has been argued that realistic models of (singularity-free) black holes (BHs) embedded within an expanding Universe are coupled to the large-scale cosmological dynamics, with striking consequences, including pure cosmological growth of BH masses. In this pilot study, we examine the consequences of this growth for the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) produced by inspiraling supermassive cosmologically coupled BHs. We show that the predicted SGWB amplitude is enhanced relative to the standard uncoupled case, while maintaining the ${\Omega }_{\text{gw}}\propto f^{2/3}$ frequency scaling of the spectral energy density. For the case where BH masses grow with scale factor as $M_{\text{bh}}\propto a^3$, thus contributing as a dark energy component to the cosmological dynamics, ${\Omega }_{\text{gw}}$ can be enhanced by more than an order of magnitude. This has important consequences for the SGWB signal detected by pulsar timing arrays, whose measured amplitude is slightly larger than most theoretical predictions for the spectrum from inspiraling binary BHs, a discrepancy which can be alleviated by the cosmological mass growth mechanism.

arXiv comment13 pages, 4 sub-figures arranged into 2 figures. v2: added new references, added new sub-figure, adjusted and explained more clearly some aspects of the analysis and the significance of Fig. 2, slight change in title, fixed a few minor typos. Version accepted for publication in Scientific Reports

References in corpus (81)

• Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant
• Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae
• f(R) Theories Of Gravity
• Modified Gravity and Cosmology
• Modified Gravity Theories on a Nutshell: Inflation, Bounce and Late-time Evolution
• 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
• Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• Horizon-scale tests of gravity theories and fundamental physics from the Event Horizon Telescope image of Sagittarius A${}^{\ast }$
• Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap
• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Gravitational Waves Probe the Coalescence Rate of Massive Black Hole Binaries
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves from Massive Black Hole Binaries: Predictions for LISA and Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Dark energy two decades after: Observables, probes, consistency tests
• NANOGrav Hints to Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter
• Cosmic String Interpretation of NANOGrav Pulsar Timing Data
• Gravitational waves from resolvable massive black hole binary systems and observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Ultra-Low Frequency Gravitational Radiation from Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Has NANOGrav found first evidence for cosmic strings?
• Mimetic gravity: a review of recent developments and applications to cosmology and astrophysics
• Expected properties of the first gravitational wave signal detected with pulsar timing arrays
• Implications of the NANOGrav results for inflation
• Systematic investigation of the expected gravitational wave signal from supermassive black hole binaries in the pulsar timing band
• Inflationary interpretation of the stochastic gravitational wave background signal detected by pulsar timing array experiments
• Cosmological expansion and local physics
• The Gravitational Wave Background from Massive Black Hole Binaries in Illustris: spectral features and time to detection with pulsar timing arrays
• McVittie's Legacy: Black Holes in an Expanding Universe
• Primordial gravitational waves from NANOGrav: a broken power-law approach
• Gas driven massive black hole binaries: signatures in the nHz gravitational wave background
• Gravitational Waves from Supermassive Black Hole Coalescence in a Hierarchical Galaxy Formation Model
• Observational evidence for cosmological coupling of black holes and its implications for an astrophysical source of dark energy
• Cosmological Background Interpretation of Pulsar Timing Array Data
• Insights on the astrophysics of supermassive black hole binaries from pulsar timing observations
• The Effect of Orbital Eccentricity on Gravitational Wave Background Radiation from Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• 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
• More on McVittie's Legacy: A Schwarzschild - de Sitter black and white hole embedded in an asymptotically $\Lambda$CDM cosmology
• Constraining astrophysical observables of Galaxy and Supermassive Black Hole Binary Mergers using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Binary super-massive black hole environments diminish the gravitational-wave signal in the pulsar timing band
• Gravitational waves and stalled satellites from massive galaxy mergers at z <= 1
• Post-Newtonian evolution of massive black hole triplets in galactic nuclei -- III. A robust lower limit to the nHz stochastic background of gravitational waves
• Selection bias in dynamically-measured super-massive black hole samples: consequences for pulsar timing arrays
• Understanding black hole mass assembly via accretion and mergers at late times in cosmological simulations
• Gravitational Waves from SMBH Binaries in Light of the NANOGrav 15-Year Data
• Spectrum of Primordial Gravitational Waves in Modified Gravities: A Short Overview
• Implications of Pulsar Timing Array Data for Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves and Primordial Black Holes: Primordial Non-Gaussianity $f_{\mathrm{NL}}$ Considered
• Efficient computation of the gravitational wave spectrum emitted by eccentric massive black hole binaries in stellar environments
• Making sense of the bizarre behaviour of horizons in the McVittie spacetime
• Dynamical evolution of cosmic supermassive binary black holes and their gravitational wave radiation
• Did we hear the sound of the Universe boiling? Analysis using the full fluid velocity profiles and NANOGrav 15-year data
• How the expansion of the universe determines the causal structure of McVittie spacetimes
• Is the NANOGrav signal a hint of dS decay during inflation?
• Single field inflation in the light of Pulsar Timing Array Data: Quintessential interpretation of blue tilted tensor spectrum through Non-Bunch Davies initial condition
• Broken blue-tilted inflationary gravitational waves: a joint analysis of NANOGrav 15-year and BICEP/Keck 2018 data
• Scalar induced gravity waves from ultra slow-roll Galileon inflation
• Constraints On Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves Up To Third Order From Joint Analysis of BBN, CMB, And PTA Data
• The nightmare scenario: measuring the stochastic gravitational-wave background from stalling massive black-hole binaries with pulsar-timing arrays
• Implications of Symmetry and Pressure in Friedmann Cosmology. I. Formalism
• The effect of differential accretion on the Gravitational Wave Background and the present day MBH Binary population
• Cosmological coupling of nonsingular black holes
• Strong Cosmic Censorship in light of Weak Gravity Conjecture for Charged Black Holes
• Constraints on the cosmological coupling of black holes from Gaia
• Constraints on the Cosmological Coupling of Black Holes from the Globular Cluster NGC 3201
• The minimum and maximum gravitational-wave background from supermassive binary black holes
• Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from JWST and NANOGrav
• DESI Dark Energy Time Evolution is Recovered by Cosmologically Coupled Black Holes
• Implications of Symmetry and Pressure in Friedmann Cosmology. II. Stellar Remnant Black Hole Mass Function
• Black holes as the source of dark energy: a stringent test with high-redshift JWST AGNs
• Evolution Of Massive Black Hole Binaries In Rotating Stellar Nuclei: Implications For Gravitational Wave Detection
• Cosmic variance in the nanohertz gravitational wave background
• Quasi-local masses and cosmological coupling of black holes and mimickers
• Exploring Proxies for the Supermassive Black Hole Mass Function: Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Black hole event horizons are cosmologically coupled
• Constraints on cosmologically coupled black holes from gravitational wave observations and minimal formation mass
• Can gravitational vacuum condensate stars be a dark energy source?
• f(R) Gravity in an Ellipsoidal Universe
• Observational implications of cosmologically coupled black holes
• Well-defined equations of motion without constraint of external sources

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Importance of being nonminimally coupled: Scalar Hawking radiation from regular black holes
• Topological regular black holes without Cauchy horizon
• Primordial regular black holes as all the dark matter. III. Covariant canonical quantum gravity models
• Dark Matter Spike surrounding Supermassive Black Holes Binary and the Nanohertz Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background
• Implications of pulsar timing arrays for Gauss-Bonnet Inflation
• Thermodynamically massless Simpson-Visser black holes
• Testing No slip model with pulsar timing arrays: NANOGrav and IPTA