{
  "id": "1102.4855",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2011-02-23T21:07:00.000Z",
  "updated": "2011-02-23T21:07:00.000Z",
  "title": "Fast coalescence of massive black hole binaries from mergers of galactic nuclei: implications for low-frequency gravitational-wave astrophysics",
  "authors": [
    "Miguel Preto",
    "Ingo Berentzen",
    "Peter Berczik",
    "Rainer Spurzem"
  ],
  "comment": "6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Submitted to ApJL",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.GA",
    "gr-qc"
  ],
  "abstract": "We investigate a purely stellar dynamical solution to the Final Parsec Problem. Galactic nuclei resulting from major mergers are not spherical, but show some degree of triaxiality. With $N$-body simulations, we show that massive black hole binaries (MBHB) hosted by them will continuously interact with stars on centrophilic orbits and will thus inspiral---in much less than a Hubble time---down to separations at which gravitational wave (GW) emission is strong enough to drive them to coalescence. Such coalescences will be important sources of GWs for future space-borne detectors such as the {\\it Laser Interferometer Space Antenna} (LISA). Based on our results, we expect that LISA will see between $\\sim 10$ to $\\sim {\\rm few} \\times 10^2$ such events every year, depending on the particular MBH seed model as obtained in recent studies of merger trees of galaxy and MBH co-evolution. Orbital eccentricities in the LISA band will be clearly distinguishable from zero with $e \\gtrsim 0.001-0.01$.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2011-02-23T21:07:00.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "massive black hole binaries",
      "low-frequency gravitational-wave astrophysics",
      "galactic nuclei",
      "fast coalescence",
      "implications"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "journal article"
    ],
    "publication": {
      "doi": "10.1088/2041-8205/732/2/L26",
      "journal": "The Astrophysical Journal",
      "year": 2011,
      "month": "May",
      "volume": 732,
      "number": 2
    },
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 6,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "inspire": 890687,
      "adsabs": "2011ApJ...732L..26P"
    }
  }
}