Prospects for Future Binary Black Hole GW Studies in Light of PTA Measurements

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of future gravitational wave detectors to observe signals from supermassive black hole binaries, building on recent PTA findings and modeling their properties and detectability.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking PTA observations to black hole binary characteristics and predicts how future detectors can expand these observations to lower mass ranges.

Findings

PTA signals likely originate from massive BH binaries at redshift ~1.

A few binaries may dominate the GW signal at >10 nHz, with observable circular polarization.

Future detectors like LISA and AEDGE could detect lower mass BH binaries.

Abstract

NANOGrav and other Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) have discovered a common-spectrum process in the nHz range that may be due to gravitational waves (GWs): if so, they are likely to have been generated by black hole (BH) binaries with total masses $> 10^9 M_{\odot}$. Using the Extended Press-Schechter formalism to model the galactic halo mass function and a simple relation between the halo and BH masses suggests that these binaries have redshifts $z = {O}(1)$ and mass ratios $\gtrsim 10$, and that the GW signal at frequencies above ${O}(10)$~nHz may be dominated by relatively few binaries that could be distinguished experimentally and would yield observable circular polarization. Extrapolating the model to higher frequencies indicates that future GW detectors such as LISA and AEDGE could extend the PTA observations to lower BH masses $\in (10^6, 10^9 ) M_{\odot}$ and $\in (10^3, 10^9) M_{\odot}$.