| Name: | Mohit Raj Sah |
| Affiliation: | Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai |
| Conference ID: | ASI2025_541 |
| Title: | Cosmology of the supermassive black holes using anisotropic nHz gravitational wave background |
| Authors: | Mohit Raj Sah and Suvodip Mukherjee |
| Authors Affiliation: | Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai |
| Mode of Presentation: | Oral |
| Abstract Category: | Galaxies and Cosmology |
| Abstract: | The formation and evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) remain an open question in cosmology. Detecting nanohertz (nHz) gravitational waves from supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) via pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) offers a promising method for studying SMBH formation over cosmic time. The gravitational wave (GW) background generated by the superposition of the GWs from individual supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) is expected to be anisotropic in nature. Moreover, since these binaries reside at the center of galaxies, the distribution of the anisotropic signal is expected to follow the galaxy distribution in the universe. Therefore, the study of the angular power spectrum of the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) as well as the cross-correlation of the SGWB signal with galaxy distribution presents a promising avenue for investigating the cosmic evolution of the SMBH. This approach can also help distinguish the origin of the SGWB, whether it is primarily astrophysical or cosmological. In our work, we demonstrate how studying the anisotropy of the SGWB can shed light on both the source of the SGWB and the cosmic evolution of SMBHs. |
