English

Precision tracking of massive black hole spin evolution with LISA

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2023-07-28 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Abstract

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will play a vital role in constraining the origin and evolution of massive black holes throughout the Universe. In this study we use a waveform model (IMRPhenomXPHM) that includes both precession and higher multipoles, and full Bayesian inference to explore the accuracy to which LISA can constrain the binary parameters. We demonstrate that LISA will be able to track the evolution of the spins -- magnitude and orientation -- to percent accuracy, providing crucial information on the dynamics and evolution of massive black hole binaries and the galactic environment in which the merger takes place. Such accurate spin-tracking further allows LISA to measure the recoil velocity of the remnant black hole to better than 100kms1100\,\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1} (90\% credibility) and its direction to a few degrees, which provides additional important astrophysical information on the post-merger association. Using a systematic suite of binaries, we showcase that the component masses will be measurable at the sub-percent level, the sky area can be constrained to within ΔΩ900.01deg2\Delta \Omega_{90} \approx 0.01 \, \rm{deg}^2, and the binary redshift to less than 0.010.01.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.13026,
  title  = {Precision tracking of massive black hole spin evolution with LISA},
  author = {Geraint Pratten and Patricia Schmidt and Hannah Middleton and Alberto Vecchio},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.13026},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

14+6 pages, 8 figures, fixed typo

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:38:58.692Z