Science with the TianQin observatory: Preliminary results on massive black hole binaries

We investigate the prospects of detecting gravitational waves from coalescing massive black hole binaries in the Universe with the TianQin observatory, a space-based gravitational wave interferometer proposed to be launched in the 2030s. To frame the scientific scope of the mission, in this paper, w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. D 2019-08, Vol.100 (4), p.1, Article 043003
Main Authors: Wang, Hai-Tian, Jiang, Zhen, Sesana, Alberto, Barausse, Enrico, Huang, Shun-Jia, Wang, Yi-Fan, Feng, Wen-Fan, Wang, Yan, Hu, Yi-Ming, Mei, Jianwei, Luo, Jun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Astrophysics
Binary stars
Black holes
Coalescing
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Gravitation
Gravitational waves
Luminosity
Observatories
Parameter estimation
Physics
Red shift
Signal to noise ratio
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Summary:We investigate the prospects of detecting gravitational waves from coalescing massive black hole binaries in the Universe with the TianQin observatory, a space-based gravitational wave interferometer proposed to be launched in the 2030s. To frame the scientific scope of the mission, in this paper, we carry out a preliminary estimation of the signal-to-noise ratio, detection rate, and parameter estimation precision of massive black hole binaries detectable by TianQin. In order to make our results as robust as possible, we consider several models of the growth history of massive black holes, exploring the effect of some key astrophysical prescriptions as well as the impact of the employed computational methods. In the most optimistic model, TianQin can detect as many as approximately 60 mergers per year. If TianQin detects a merger at redshift of 15, it will be capable of estimating its luminosity distance to within an accuracy of 10%; for a nearby event at redshift approximately 2, TianQin can issue early warnings 24 hours before coalescence, with a timing accuracy of around three hours and a sky localization ability of approximately 80  deg2, thus enabling multimessenger observations.
ISSN:2470-0010
2470-0029
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.100.043003