The Host Galaxies of PTA Sources: Converting Supermassive BH Binary Parameters into EM Observables

Abstract

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are approaching the sensitivity required to resolve gravitational waves (GWs) from individual supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. However, the large uncertainty in source localization will make the identification of its host environment challenging. We show how to convert the posterior probability function of binary parameters inferred by GW analyses into distributions of apparent magnitudes of the host galaxy. We do so for a scenario in which the host environment is a regular early-type galaxy, and one in which it is an active galactic nucleus. We estimate the reach of PTAs in the near and intermediate future, and estimate whether the binary hosts will be detectable in all-sky electromagnetic (EM) surveys. A PTA with a baseline of 20 yr and 116 pulsars, resembling the upcoming data release of the International Pulsar Timing Array, can detect binaries out to a luminosity distance of 2 Gpc (corresponding to a redshift of $z\sim 0.36$), while a PTA with a baseline of 30 yr and 200 pulsars can reach out to distances slightly greater than 3 Gpc ($z\sim 0.53$). We find that the host galaxies of all binaries detectable with a baseline of 20 yr are expected to be present in the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and SuperCOSMOS surveys, if they lie outside the plane of the Milky Way. The Two Micron All Sky Survey becomes incomplete for hosts of binaries more massive than $10^{9.8}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ at a luminosity distance greater than 1 Gpc. The EM surveys become slightly more incomplete when PTAs with longer baselines and therefore improved sensitivities are considered.

14 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (80)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• A Fundamental Relation Between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• A Relationship Between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion
• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• The Spitzer Space Telescope Mission
• On the Black Hole Mass - Bulge Mass Relation
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Revisiting the Scaling Relations of Black Hole Masses and Host Galaxy Properties
• 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
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. II. Array and Instrumentation
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals
• The international pulsar timing array project: using pulsars as a gravitational wave detector
• The SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey. Paper I: Introduction and Description
• Euclid. I. Overview of the Euclid mission
• Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO):Overview
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: First Data Release
• The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves
• The Absolute Magnitude of the Sun in Several Filters
• The unWISE Catalog: Two Billion Infrared Sources from Five Years of WISE Imaging
• 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
• Binary Black Hole Accretion From a Circumbinary Disk: Gas Dynamics Inside the Central Cavity
• unWISE: unblurred coadds of the WISE imaging
• The Population of Viscosity- and Gravitational Wave-Driven Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Among Luminous AGN
• Extending the Nearby Galaxy Heritage with WISE: First Results from the WISE Enhanced Resolution Galaxy Atlas
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: Second data release
• The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves
• Updating quasar bolometric luminosity corrections
• Accretion into the Central Cavity of a Circumbinary Disk
• Near-infrared template spectra of normal galaxies: k-corrections, galaxy models and stellar populations
• Precise Black Hole Masses From Megamaser Disks: Black Hole-Bulge Relations at Low Mass
• Expected properties of the first gravitational wave signal detected with pulsar timing arrays
• A Large Systematic Search for Recoiling and Close Supermassive Binary Black Holes
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Mid-Infrared Properties and Empirical Relations from $WISE$
• The New Generation Atlas of Quasar Spectral Energy Distributions from Radio to X-rays
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Third Data Release
• A Catalog of Quasar Properties from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16
• The MeerKAT Telescope as a Pulsar Facility: System verification and early science results from MeerTime
• The Local Nanohertz Gravitational-Wave Landscape From Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Effect of environment on galaxies mass-size distribution: unveiling the transition from outside-in to inside-out evolution
• Observational Signatures of Binary Supermassive Black Holes
• WISE x SuperCOSMOS photometric redshift catalog: 20 million galaxies over 3pi steradians
• 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
• Electromagnetic Counterparts to Massive Black Hole Mergers
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Wideband Timing of 47 Millisecond Pulsars
• GLADE+: An Extended Galaxy Catalogue for Multimessenger Searches with Advanced Gravitational-wave Detectors
• The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: First Data Release
• The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: The first search for gravitational waves with the MeerKAT radio telescope
• Supermassive Black Holes and the Evolution of Galaxies
• The Black Hole -- Bulge Mass Relation including Dwarf Galaxies Hosting Active Galactic Nuclei
• Constraining Sub-Parsec Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Quasars with Multi-Epoch Spectroscopy. III. Candidates from Continued Radial Velocity Tests
• Obscuration in AGNs: near-infrared luminosity relations and dust colors
• Correlations of near-infrared, optical and X-ray luminosity for early-type galaxies
• The mid-infrared colour-magnitude relation of early-type galaxies in the Coma cluster as measured by Spitzer-IRS
• SPHEREx: NASA's Near-Infrared Spectrophotmetric All-Sky Survey
• Ripple effects & oscillations in the broad FeKa line as a probe of massive black hole mergers
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• The Ellipticities of Cluster Early-type Galaxies from z~1 to z~0: No Evolution in the Overall Distribution of Bulge-to-Disk Ratios
• Repeated Imaging of Massive Black Hole Binary Orbits with Millimeter Interferometry: measuring black hole masses and the Hubble constant
• The NANOGrav Program for Gravitational Waves and Fundamental Physics
• Emission Signatures from Sub-parsec Binary Supermassive Black Holes I: Diagnostic Power of Broad Emission Lines
• The NANOGrav 11yr Data Set: Limits on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Galaxies within 500Mpc
• The SuperCOSMOS all-sky galaxy catalogue
• The hot circumgalactic medium in the eROSITA All-Sky Survey II. Scaling relations between X-ray luminosity and galaxies' mass
• Constraining the parameters of the putative supermassive binary black hole in PG 1302-102 from its radio structure
• Photo-centric variability of quasars caused by variations in their inner structure: Consequences on Gaia measurements
• Emission Lines as a Tool in Search for Supermassive Black Hole Binaries and Recoiling Black Holes
• Associating Host Galaxy Candidates to Massive Black Hole Binaries resolved by Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Identifying Host Galaxies of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Found by PTAs
• Suppressed accretion onto massive black hole binaries surrounded by thin disks
• Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations I: Unique Galaxy Morphologies in Imaging
• Host Galaxy Demographics Of Individually Detectable Supermassive Black-hole Binaries with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations II: Unique Stellar Kinematics in Integral Field Unit Spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Hot, cold, and multi-component accretion flows around supermassive black hole binaries