Associating host galaxy candidates to massive black hole binaries resolved by pulsar timing arrays

Goldstein, Janna M.; Sesana, Alberto; Holgado, A. Miguel; Veitch, John

doi:10.1093/mnras/stz420

Title: Associating host galaxy candidates to massive black hole binaries resolved by pulsar timing arrays

Journal Article · Mon Feb 11 00:00:00 EST 2019 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz420· OSTI ID:1495513

^[1]; Sesana, Alberto ^[1];

^[2];

^[3]

School of Physics and Astronomy and Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
Department of Astronomy and National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
School of Physics and Astronomy and Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

We propose a novel methodology to select host galaxy candidates of future pulsar timing array (PTA) detections of resolved gravitational waves (GWs) from massive black hole binaries (MBHBs). The method exploits the physical dependence of the GW amplitude on the MBHB chirp mass and distance to the observer, together with empirical MBH mass–host galaxy correlations, to rank potential host galaxies in the mass–redshift plane. This is coupled to a null-stream-based likelihood evaluation of the GW amplitude and sky position in a Bayesian framework that assigns to each galaxy a probability of hosting the MBHB generating the GW signal. We test our algorithm on a set of realistic simulations coupling the likely properties of the first PTA resolved GW signal to synthetic all-sky galaxy maps. For a foreseeable PTA sky-localization precision of 100 deg², we find that the GW source is hosted with 50 percent (90 percent) probability within a restricted number of ≲50 (≲500) potential hosts. These figures are orders of magnitude smaller than the total number of galaxies within the PTA sky error-box, enabling extensive electromagnetic follow-up campaigns on a limited number of targets.

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Research Organization:: Krell Institute, Ames, IA (United States); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); Royal Society; Science and Technology Funding Counsel

Grant/Contract Number:: NA0003864; ST/K005014/1

OSTI ID:: 1495513

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1614428

Journal Information:: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. 485 Journal Issue: 1; ISSN 0035-8711

Publisher:: Oxford University PressCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United Kingdom

Language:: English

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Cited by: 7 works

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