Kavli Affiliate: Xian Chen
| First 5 Authors: Liang-Gui Zhu, Xian Chen, , ,
| Summary:
Massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) are the loudest gravitational-wave (GW)
sources in milli-Hertz (mHz) GW band, but their dynamical evolution may stall
when the black holes reach the innermost parsec of a galaxy. Such a
“final-parsec problem” could be solved if MBHB forms in a gas-rich
environment, such as an active galactic nucleus (AGN), but other solutions not
involving AGNs also exist. Testing the correlation between MBHBs and AGNs is
difficult in real observation because AGNs are ubiquitous. To overcome this
difficult, we use a statistical method, first designed to constrain the host
galaxies of stellar-mass binary black holes, to search for the MBHB-AGN
correlation in different scenarios. We find that by detecting only one MBHB at
$zlesssim0.5$, a mHz GW detector, such as the Laser Interferometer Space
Antenna (LISA), can already distinguish different merger scenarios thanks to
its ability of precisely localizing the source. Moreover, future detector
networks and deeper AGNs surveys will allow us to testify the MBHB-AGN
correlation up to a redshift of $zsim 3$ even if only a small fraction of
$20%$ of MBHBs actually merge in AGNs. These constraints will help settle the
long-standing debate on the possible solutions to the final-parsec problem.
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