Statistics of the supermassive black hole gravitational wave background anisotropy

Abstract

We study the statistical properties of the anisotropy in the gravitational wave (GW) background originating from supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. We derive the distribution of the GW anisotropy power spectrum coefficients, $C_{l\ge 1}/C_0$, in scenarios including environmental effects and eccentricities of the SMBH binaries. Although the mean of $C_{l\ge 1}/C_0$ is the same for all multipoles, we show that their distributions vary, with the low $l$ distributions being the widest. We also find a strong correlation between spectral fluctuations and the anisotropy in the GW signal. We show that the GW anisotropy can break the degeneracy between the scenarios including environmental effects or eccentricity. In particular, we find that existing NANOGrav constraints on GW anisotropy begin to constrain SMBH scenarios with strong environmental effects.

arXiv comment12 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (32)

• 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
• 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
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Observations and Timing of 68 Millisecond Pulsars
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array I. The dataset and timing analysis
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Third Data Release
• The stellar-to-halo mass relation over the past 12 Gyr
• The gravitational-wave background null hypothesis: Characterizing noise in millisecond pulsar arrival times with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• Gas driven massive black hole binaries: signatures in the nHz gravitational wave background
• Characterising gravitational wave stochastic background anisotropy with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Bayesian Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Searching For Anisotropic Gravitational-wave Backgrounds Using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Cosmological Background Interpretation of Pulsar Timing Array Data
• Insights on the astrophysics of supermassive black hole binaries from pulsar timing observations
• From Bright Binaries To Bumpy Backgrounds: Mapping Realistic Gravitational Wave Skies With Pulsar-Timing Arrays
• Post-Newtonian evolution of massive black hole triplets in galactic nuclei -- III. A robust lower limit to the nHz stochastic background of gravitational waves
• Gravitational Waves from SMBH Binaries in Light of the NANOGrav 15-Year Data
• Implications for the Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the NANOGrav 15-year Data Set
• 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
• Dynamical evolution of cosmic supermassive binary black holes and their gravitational wave radiation
• Forecasting pulsar timing array sensitivity to anisotropy in the stochastic gravitational wave background
• Prospects for Future Binary Black Hole GW Studies in Light of PTA Measurements
• Probing the assembly history and dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays
• Imprints of Supermassive Black Hole Evolution on the Spectral and Spatial Anisotropy of Nano-Hertz Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Source anisotropies and pulsar timing arrays
• Eccentricity effects on the supermassive black hole gravitational wave background
• Consistency of JWST Black Hole Observations with NANOGrav Gravitational Wave Measurements
• Measuring kinematic anisotropies with pulsar timing arrays
• Testing strengths, limitations and biases of current Pulsar Timing Arrays detection analyses on realistic data

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays of Sub-solar Black Hole Detections: From LVK to Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer