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Probing supermassive black hole binaries with pulsar timing

Nature Astronomy volume 3, pages 8–10 (2019)Cite this article

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The detection of a gravitational-wave background at nanohertz frequencies can tell us if and how supermassive black holes merge, and inform our knowledge of galaxy merger rates and supermassive black hole masses. All we have to do is time pulsars.

Supermassive black hole (SMBH) mergers are the strongest sources of gravitational-waves (GWs) in the Universe. SMBH mergers are expected to follow galaxy mergers, since likely all massive galaxies host central SMBHs (see, for example, ref. 1). Briefly, the black holes fall to the centre of the newly formed galaxy through dynamical friction and form a binary. This binary should harden by ejecting stars crossing its orbit — a process called stellar hardening. When the binary is separated by a centiparsec to a milliparsec, GWs drive the binary to merge. These steps are described in more detail in ref. 2.

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Fig. 1: Astrophysics manifesting in the gravitational-wave background strain spectrum.

S. Burke-Spolaor (West Virginia University)

Fig. 2: Time to detection of different models of the gravitational-wave background (GWB).

adapted from ref. 8, AAS

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Acknowledgements

I thank J. Lazio, D. Foreman-Mackey and X. Siemens for useful discussions. I also thank S. Taylor and S. Burke-Spolaor for permission to edit and reproduce some of their figures. The Flatiron Institute is funded by the Simons Foundation.

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  1. Center of Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Chiara M. F. Mingarelli

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Correspondence to Chiara M. F. Mingarelli.

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Mingarelli, C.M.F. Probing supermassive black hole binaries with pulsar timing. Nat Astron 3, 8–10 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0666-y

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