Gravitational Radiation Driven Supermassive Black Hole Binary Inspirals as Periodically Variable Electromagnetic Sources
Abstract
Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) produced in galaxy mergers are thought to complete their coalescence, below separations of rGW=10-3 (MBH/108 Msun)3/4 pc, as their orbit decays due to the emission of gravitational waves (GWs). It may be possible to identify such GW-driven inspirals statistically in an electromagnetic (EM) survey for variable sources. A GW-driven binary spends a characteristic time TGW at each orbital separation rorb < rGW that scales with the corresponding orbital time torb as TGW = (const) torb8/3. If the coalescing binary produces variations in the EM emission on this timescale, then it could be identified as a variable source with a characteristic period tvar = torb. The incidence rate of sources with similar inferred BH masses, showing near-periodic variability on the time-scale tvar, would then be proportional to tvar8/3. Luminosity variations corresponding to a fraction fEdd<0.01 of the Eddington luminosity would have been missed in current surveys. However, if the binary inspirals are associated with quasars, we show that a dedicated survey could detect the population of SMBHBs with a range of periods around tens of weeks. The discovery of a population of periodic sources whose abundance obeys Nvar = (const) tvar8/3 would confirm (i) that the orbital decay is indeed driven by GWs, and (ii) that circumbinary gas is present at small orbital radii and is being perturbed by the BHs. Deviations from the tvar8/3 power-law could constrain the structure of the circumbinary gas disk and viscosity-driven orbital decay. We discuss constraints from existing data, and quantify the sensitivity and sky coverage that could yield a detection in future surveys.