Observing the dynamics of super-massive black hole binaries with Pulsar Timing Arrays

TL;DR

This paper discusses how Pulsar Timing Arrays can detect gravitational waves from super-massive black hole binaries, revealing their properties and advancing understanding of black hole evolution.

Contribution

It demonstrates that resolving individual super-massive black hole binaries via pulsar timing can directly measure black hole masses and spins, offering new insights into their dynamics.

Findings

Detection of gravitational waves from resolvable black hole binaries is feasible.

Timing fluctuations at pulsars and Earth can reveal black hole parameters.

This approach opens new pathways to study black hole formation and evolution.

Abstract

Pulsar Timing Arrays are a prime tool to study unexplored astrophysical regimes with gravitational waves. Here we show that the detection of gravitational radiation from individually resolvable super-massive black hole binary systems can yield direct information about the masses and spins of the black holes, provided that the gravitational-wave induced timing fluctuations both at the pulsar and at the Earth are detected. This in turn provides a map of the non-linear dynamics of the gravitational field and a new avenue to tackle open problems in astrophysics connected to the formation and evolution of super-massive black holes. We discuss the potential, the challenges and the limitations of these observations.