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arXiv 0810.5200astro-ph
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局域宇宙中亮早型星系的合并与引力波背景

Mergers of luminous early-type galaxies in the local universe and gravitational wave background

Z. L. Wen, F. S. Liu, J. L. Han

摘要:

星系合并中的超大质量黑洞(SMBH)合并被认为是甚低频引力波(GW)的主要来源之一。红移z<2的大质量星系合并对引力波的贡献很大。以前很少有研究给出大质量星系的合并率。%我们从斯隆数字巡天数据第6版的87,889个明亮的早型星系(M_r<-21.5)中选取了一个大样本(1209个),这些星系对的投影间距为7<r_p<50 kpc。这些对构成了局部宇宙(z<0.12)中完整的体积有限样本。使用我们新开发的技术,249合并已确定通过搜索的相互作用功能。由此我们得到了明亮早型星系的合并率为0.8%,在本机宇宙中的合并率为% R_g=(1.0+/-0.4)*10^{-5} Mpc^{-3} Gyr^{-1}} %,其不确定性主要取决于合并的时间尺度。%我们根据它们的光度估计了合并星系中心的SMBH的质量。我们发现SMBH双星的啁啾质量分布在5* 10 ^8--5 10 ^{9} M_{\odot}范围内遵循指数为-3.0+/-0.5的幂律。在合并中使用SMBH布居并且假设SMBH可以被有效地驱动到GW区域,我们研究了在10^{-9}--10 ^{-7} Hz频率范围内的随机GW背景。我们得到了hc(f)=10^{-15}(f/yr^{-1})^{-2/3}的GW背景谱,比Jaffe & Backer在2003年得到的结果高出一个星等,但与星系形成模型的计算结果一致。

英文摘要:

Supermassive black hole (SMBH) coalescence in galaxy mergers is believed to be one of the primary sources of very low frequency gravitational waves (GWs). Significant contribution of the GWs comes from mergers of massive galaxies with redshifts z<2. Very few previous studies gave the merger rate of massive galaxies. % We selected a large sample (1209) of close pairs of galaxies with projected separations 7<r_p<50 kpc from 87,889 luminous early-type galaxies (M_r<-21.5) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6. These pairs constitute a complete volume-limited sample in the local universe (z<0.12). Using our newly developed technique, 249 mergers have been identified by searching for interaction features. From them, we found that the merger fraction of luminous early-type galaxies is 0.8%, and the merger rate in the local universe is % R_g=(1.0+/-0.4)*10^{-5} Mpc^{-3} Gyr^{-1}} % with an uncertainty mainly depending on the merging timescale. % We estimated the masses of SMBHs in the centers of merging galaxies based on their luminosities. We found that the chirp mass distribution of the SMBH binaries follows a power law with an index of -3.0+/-0.5 in the range 5*10^8--5*10^{9} M_{\odot}. % Using the SMBH population in the mergers and assuming that the SMBHs can be efficiently driven into the GW regime, we investigated the stochastic GW background in the frequency range 10^{-9}--10^{-7} Hz. We obtained the spectrum of the GW background of h_c(f)=10^{-15}(f/yr^{-1})^{-2/3}, which is one magnitude higher than that obtained by Jaffe & Backer in 2003, but consistent with those calculated from galaxy-formation models.

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