Self-consistently heated and cooled thin circumbinary disks still drive massive black hole binaries into long-lived non-accreting phases, producing X-ray-weak, optically variable sources that LSST and Roman could find.
Selection bias in dynamically-measured super-massive black hole samples: consequences for pulsar timing arrays
3 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
abstract
Supermassive black hole -- host galaxy relations are key to the computation of the expected gravitational wave background (GWB) in the pulsar timing array (PTA) frequency band. It has been recently pointed out that standard relations adopted in GWB computations are in fact biased-high. We show that when this selection bias is taken into account, the expected GWB in the PTA band is a factor of about three smaller than previously estimated. Compared to other scaling relations recently published in the literature, the median amplitude of the signal at $f=1$yr$^{-1}$ drops from $1.3\times10^{-15}$ to $4\times10^{-16}$. Although this solves any potential tension between theoretical predictions and recent PTA limits without invoking other dynamical effects (such as stalling, eccentricity or strong coupling with the galactic environment), it also makes the GWB detection more challenging.
years
2026 3representative citing papers
FABLE simulation predictions for the nanohertz gravitational wave background are statistically consistent with NANOGrav 15-year data at 1–2.5σ tension, with physically motivated population modifications further improving agreement.
Morphology-dependent M_bh-σ0 relations are reported: shallow (2.5-3.1) for dust-poor S0 galaxies and steep (7.8) for massive ellipticals, using new SCOPE Bayesian regression on 137 galaxies.
citing papers explorer
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Dynamics and detectability of long-lived non-accretion phases for massive black hole binaries in cold, thermally regulating disks
Self-consistently heated and cooled thin circumbinary disks still drive massive black hole binaries into long-lived non-accreting phases, producing X-ray-weak, optically variable sources that LSST and Roman could find.
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Comparing gravitational wave background predictions from cosmological simulations to pulsar timing observations
FABLE simulation predictions for the nanohertz gravitational wave background are statistically consistent with NANOGrav 15-year data at 1–2.5σ tension, with physically motivated population modifications further improving agreement.
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Galaxy morphology dependent (black hole mass)-(velocity dispersion) relations: implications for gravitational wave forecasts and cosmological simulations
Morphology-dependent M_bh-σ0 relations are reported: shallow (2.5-3.1) for dust-poor S0 galaxies and steep (7.8) for massive ellipticals, using new SCOPE Bayesian regression on 137 galaxies.