Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...209.7408l&link_type=abstract
2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #74.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, V
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The coalescence of two massive black holes produces gravitational waves (GWs) that will be measurable by the space-based GW observatory LISA. Such binaries are formed by the merger of the holes' host galaxies; hierarchical structure formation predicts many tens of events per year, particularly at redshifts z > 3. Measuring the GWs from these events could thus allow us to track the growth of black holes and (indirectly) trace the assembly of galaxies. Most excitingly, these measurements can provide precision data on the black holes' masses and spins and on the luminosity distance to the source. With less precision, they also localize the source on the sky. We present results, based on maximum likelihood parameter estimation, for how well these parameters can be measured. Our code incorporates the effects of spin-induced precession on the gravitational waveform; these effects introduce modulations into the signal which break degeneracies among parameters. This improves (in some cases drastically) the estimated precision with which black hole parameters can be measured. We typically find masses can be measured at z 1 with 0.05-1% accuracy. Low redshift systems can be localized at final merger to an ellipse which is roughly 10 a few x 10 arcminutes across in the long direction and a factor of 2 smaller in the short direction. Much of the pointing precision comes in the final week of observation; these ellipses are typically a factor of 2-4 (3-6) times larger 7 days (14 days) before the black holes merge. We find that the relative error in measured luminosity distance is 0.1-0.4% at z 1. Finally, with the inclusion of precession, the magnitudes of the spins can be determined for the first time. For low redshift systems, these can be measured with 0.1-10% accuracy, depending on the spin value.
Hughes Scott A.
Lang Ryan N.
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