Related papers: Exploring Proxies for the Supermassive Black Hole …
By inferring the gravitational wave background (GWB) from a population of supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) enable the study of massive black holes. In many ways, PTAs manifest the promise of a…
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are designed to detect the predicted gravitational wave (GW) background produced by a cosmological population of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. In this contribution I review the physics of such GW…
This paper presents a technique to search for supermassive black hole binaries (MBHBs) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The search is based on the peculiar properties of merging galaxies that are found in a mock galaxy catalog from…
Supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary systems are unavoidable outcomes of galaxy mergers. Their dynamics encode information about their formation and growth, the composition of their host galactic nuclei, the evolution of galaxies, and the…
We present an analytic model to describe the supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) merger rate in the Universe with astrophysical observables: galaxy stellar mass function, pair fraction, merger timescale and black hole - host galaxy…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) found in the centers of many galaxies have been recognized to play a fundamental active role in the cosmological structure formation process. In hierarchical formation scenarios, SMBHs are expected to form…
Galaxy observations suggest that mergers of supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are rare events, with rates of order one per decade across the observable Universe. We present a framework to search for merging SMBHBs in pulsar timing…
The present-day mass function of supermassive black holes is the most important observable quantity for the prediction and theoretical interpretation of the gravitational wave background (GWB) measured by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs). Due to…
The mergers of galaxies and supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are key drivers of galaxy evolution, contributing to the growth of both galaxies and their central black holes. Current and upcoming gravitational wave (GW) detectors -- Pulsar…
Massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) produce gravitational waves (GWs) that are detectable with pulsar timing arrays. We determine the properties of the host galaxies of simulated MBHBs at the time they are producing detectable GW signals.…
By monitoring the times of arrival of radio pulses from millisecond pulsars, Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) serve as unique gravitational wave (GW) laboratories in the nanohertz band. To date, the primary astrophysical sources of GWs targeted…
Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) at the centers of galaxies emit continuous gravitational waves (GWs) at nanohertz frequencies, and ongoing pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments aim to detect the first individual system.…
Supermassive black holes are commonly found in the center of galaxies and evolve with their hosts. The supermassive binary black holes (SMBBH) are thus expected to exist in close galaxy pairs, however, none has been unequivocally detected.…
Numerous observations have shown that almost all galaxies in our Universe host supermassive black holes (SMBHs), but there is still much debate about their formation and evolutionary processes. Recently, gravitational waves (GWs) have been…
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are Galactic-scale gravitational wave (GW) detectors consisting of precisely-timed pulsars distributed across the sky. Within the decade, PTAs are expected to detect the nanohertz GWs emitted by close-separation…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are found in the centers of massive galaxies, and galaxy mergers should eventually lead to SMBH mergers. Quasar activity has long been associated with galaxy mergers, so here we investigate if supermassive…
Large-area sky surveys show that massive galaxies undergo at least one major merger in a Hubble time. Ongoing pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments are aimed at measuring the gravitational wave (GW) emission from binary supermassive black…
The most massive black holes in our Universe form binaries at the centre of merging galaxies. The recent evidence for a gravitational-wave (GW) background from pulsar timing may constitute the first observation that these supermassive black…
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are designed to detect gravitational waves (GWs) at nHz frequencies. The expected dominant signal is given by the superposition of all waves emitted by the cosmological population of supermassive black hole…
Many galaxies contain supermassive black holes (SMBHs), whose formation and history raise many puzzles. Pulsar timing arrays have recently discovered a low-frequency cosmological "hum" of gravitational waves that may be emitted by SMBH…