Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave Measurements
The process whereby the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) populating the centers of galaxies have been assembled remains to be established, with the relative importance of seeds provided by collapsed Population III stars, black holes formed in nuclear star clusters via repeated mergers, or direct col...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2024-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad27d5 |
| _version_ | 1797266079165186048 |
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| author | John Ellis Malcolm Fairbairn Juan Urrutia Ville Vaskonen |
| author_facet | John Ellis Malcolm Fairbairn Juan Urrutia Ville Vaskonen |
| author_sort | John Ellis |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The process whereby the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) populating the centers of galaxies have been assembled remains to be established, with the relative importance of seeds provided by collapsed Population III stars, black holes formed in nuclear star clusters via repeated mergers, or direct collapses of protogalactic disks yet to be determined. In this paper we study the prospects for casting light on this issue by future measurements of gravitational waves emitted during the inspirals and mergers of pairs of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), discussing in particular the roles of prospective measurements by LISA and the proposed atom interferometers AION and AEDGE. We find that the expected number of detectable IMBH binaries is ${ \mathcal O }(100)$ for LISA and AEDGE and ${ \mathcal O }(10)$ for AION in low-mass seeds scenarios and goes down to ${ \mathcal O }(10)$ for LISA and below one for AEDGE and AION in high-mass seed scenarios. This allows all of these observatories to probe the parameters of the seed model, in particular, if at least a fraction of the SMBHs arises from a low-mass seed population. We also show that the measurement accuracy of the binary parameters is, in general, best for AEDGE, which sees very precisely the merger of the binary. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-25T00:54:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-67ff949c8aac4a43ab002fceb516eb99 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1538-4357 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-25T00:54:59Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | The Astrophysical Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-67ff949c8aac4a43ab002fceb516eb992024-03-11T11:26:29ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal1538-43572024-01-0196411110.3847/1538-4357/ad27d5Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave MeasurementsJohn Ellis0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7399-0813Malcolm Fairbairn1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0566-4127Juan Urrutia2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6035-6610Ville Vaskonen3https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0003-2259King's College London , Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK ; malcolm.fairbairn@kcl.ac.uk, john.ellis@cern.ch; Theoretical Physics Department , CERN, Geneva, Switzerland; Keemilise ja Bioloogilise Füüsika Instituut , Rävala pst. 10, 10143 Tallinn, Estonia ; juan.urrutia@kbfi.ee, ville.vaskonen@pd.infn.itKing's College London , Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK ; malcolm.fairbairn@kcl.ac.uk, john.ellis@cern.chKeemilise ja Bioloogilise Füüsika Instituut , Rävala pst. 10, 10143 Tallinn, Estonia ; juan.urrutia@kbfi.ee, ville.vaskonen@pd.infn.it; Department of Cybernetics, Tallinn University of Technology , Akadeemia tee 21, 12618 Tallinn, EstoniaKeemilise ja Bioloogilise Füüsika Instituut , Rävala pst. 10, 10143 Tallinn, Estonia ; juan.urrutia@kbfi.ee, ville.vaskonen@pd.infn.it; Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università degli Studi di Padova , Via Marzolo 8, 35131 Padova, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare , Sezione di Padova, Via Marzolo 8, 35131 Padova, ItalyThe process whereby the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) populating the centers of galaxies have been assembled remains to be established, with the relative importance of seeds provided by collapsed Population III stars, black holes formed in nuclear star clusters via repeated mergers, or direct collapses of protogalactic disks yet to be determined. In this paper we study the prospects for casting light on this issue by future measurements of gravitational waves emitted during the inspirals and mergers of pairs of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), discussing in particular the roles of prospective measurements by LISA and the proposed atom interferometers AION and AEDGE. We find that the expected number of detectable IMBH binaries is ${ \mathcal O }(100)$ for LISA and AEDGE and ${ \mathcal O }(10)$ for AION in low-mass seeds scenarios and goes down to ${ \mathcal O }(10)$ for LISA and below one for AEDGE and AION in high-mass seed scenarios. This allows all of these observatories to probe the parameters of the seed model, in particular, if at least a fraction of the SMBHs arises from a low-mass seed population. We also show that the measurement accuracy of the binary parameters is, in general, best for AEDGE, which sees very precisely the merger of the binary.https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad27d5Intermediate-mass black holesGravitational wavesCosmologySupermassive black holes |
| spellingShingle | John Ellis Malcolm Fairbairn Juan Urrutia Ville Vaskonen Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave Measurements The Astrophysical Journal Intermediate-mass black holes Gravitational waves Cosmology Supermassive black holes |
| title | Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave Measurements |
| title_full | Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave Measurements |
| title_fullStr | Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave Measurements |
| title_full_unstemmed | Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave Measurements |
| title_short | Probing Supermassive Black Hole Seed Scenarios with Gravitational-wave Measurements |
| title_sort | probing supermassive black hole seed scenarios with gravitational wave measurements |
| topic | Intermediate-mass black holes Gravitational waves Cosmology Supermassive black holes |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad27d5 |
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