School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev Lett. 2012 Aug 24;109(8):081104. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.081104. Epub 2012 Aug 23.
Pulsar timing arrays are a prime tool to study unexplored astrophysical regimes with gravitational waves. Here, we show that the detection of gravitational radiation from individually resolvable supermassive black hole binary systems can yield direct information about the masses and spins of the black holes, provided that the gravitational-wave-induced timing fluctuations both at the pulsar and at Earth are detected. This in turn provides a map of the nonlinear dynamics of the gravitational field and a new avenue to tackle open problems in astrophysics connected to the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes. We discuss the potential, the challenges, and the limitations of these observations.
脉冲星时变阵列是研究引力波作用下尚未探索的天体物理领域的主要工具。在这里，我们表明，只要探测到脉冲星和地球处由引力波引起的定时波动，来自可单独分辨的超大质量黑洞双星系统的引力辐射的探测可以提供有关黑洞质量和自旋的直接信息。这反过来又提供了引力场的非线性动力学图谱，并为解决与超大质量黑洞的形成和演化相关的天体物理开放性问题提供了新途径。我们讨论了这些观测的潜力、挑战和局限性。
