The effect of differential accretion on the Gravitational Wave Background and the present day MBH Binary population

TL;DR

This study models how differential accretion influences massive black hole binary evolution, merger rates, and gravitational wave background, providing insights for future pulsar timing array observations and electromagnetic detections.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent evolution model for MBHB masses with binary accretion, revealing significant impacts on merger rates, masses, and GW background predictions.

Findings

MBHBs coalesce with median masses up to 1.5×10^8 M_sun

Accretion models can increase GWB amplitude by up to 4 times

Binary separation and mass ratio distributions depend on accretion assumptions

Abstract

Massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) form as a consequence of galaxy mergers. However, it is still unclear whether they typically merge within a Hubble time, and how accretion may affect their evolution. These questions will be addressed by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs), which aim to detect the GW background (GWB) emitted by MBHBs during the last Myrs of inspiral. Here we investigate the influence of differential accretion on MBHB merger rates, chirp masses and the resulting GWB spectrum. We evolve a MBHB sample from the Illustris hydrodynamic cosmological simulation using semi-analytic models and for the first time self-consistently evolve their masses with binary accretion models. In all models, MBHBs coalesce with median total masses up to $1.5 \times 10^8 M_{\odot}$, up to $3-4$ times larger than in models neglecting accretion. In our model with the largest plausible impact, the median mass ratio of coalescing MBHBs increases by a factor $3.6$, the coalescence rate by $52.3\%$, and the GWB amplitude by a factor $4.0$, yielding a dimensionless GWB strain $A_{yr^{-1}} = 1 \times 10^{-15}$. Our model that favours accretion onto the primary MBH reduces the median mass ratio of coalescing MBHBs by a factor of $2.9$, and yields a GWB amplitude $A_{yr^{-1}} = 3.1 \times 10^{-16}$. This is nearly indistinguishable from our model neglecting accretion, despite higher MBHB masses at coalescence. \textbf{We further predict binary separation and mass ratio distributions of stalled MBHBs in the low-redshift universe, and find that these depend sensitively on binary accretion models. This presents the potential for combined EM and GW observational constraints on merger rates and accretion models of MBHB populations.}