Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations II: Unique Stellar Kinematics in Integral Field Unit Spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that stellar kinematic maps from integral field spectroscopy can effectively identify host galaxies of massive black hole mergers, especially those with high chirp masses and mass ratios, aiding future gravitational wave follow-up.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel method using stellar kinematic analysis from synthetic IFU data to distinguish MBH merger host galaxies, building on previous morphological findings.

Findings

High accuracy (>85%) in identifying host galaxies with high chirp mass and mass ratio.

Host galaxies show slower rotation and stronger kinematic misalignments.

Kinematic signatures are linked to galaxies that experienced major mergers.

Abstract

Secure methods for identifying the host galaxies of individual massive black hole (MBH) binaries and mergers detected by gravitational wave experiments such as LISA and Pulsar Timing Arrays are currently lacking, but will be critical to a variety of science goals. Recently in Bardati et al. (2024, Paper I), we used the Romulus25 cosmological simulation to show that MBH merger host galaxies have unique morphologies in imaging, due to their stronger bulges. Here, we use the same sample of simulated MBH merger host galaxies to investigate their stellar kinematics, as probed by optical integral field unit (IFU) spectroscopy. We perform stellar population synthesis and dust radiative transfer to generate synthetic 3D optical spectral datacubes of each simulated galaxy, and produce mock stellar kinematic maps. Based on a linear discriminant analysis of a combination of kinematic parameters derived from these maps, we show that this approach can identify MBH binary and merger host galaxies with accuracies that increase with chirp mass and mass ratio. For mergers with high chirp masses (>10^8.2 Msun) and high mass ratios (>0.5), the accuracies reach >85%, and their host galaxies are uniquely characterized by slower rotation and stronger stellar kinematic misalignments. These kinematic properties are commonly associated with massive early-type galaxies that have experienced major mergers, and naturally act as signposts for MBH binaries and mergers with high chirp masses and mass ratios. These results suggest that IFU spectroscopy should also play a role in telescope follow-up of future MBH binaries and mergers detected in gravitational waves.