Gravitational Radiation from Intermediate Mass Black Holes

PI: Sachiko Tsuruta, Physics Department, Montana State University

Coalescences of binary black hole systems could be a powerful source of gravitational waves for the current and future observatories such as LIGO, LISA, ALIA, DECIGO and BBO.  Detection of these gravitational waves will be extremely important for the understanding of strong gravity.  In connection with LIGO and LISA ,substantial work has already been carried out for stellar mass and supermassive black hole binaries.  However, there is still a considerable amount of serious work yet to be carried out for those involving the intermediate mass black holes which should be powerful gravitational wave sources not only for LISA, but especially for future missions such as ALIA, DECIGO and BBO.  Therefore, as part of long range plans the PI will carry out systematic studies of coalescences of these binary intermediate mass black holes.  The long range goals are to offer valuable insight to such exciting problems as the origin and evolution of galaxies and stars, by comparing various competing models with the observations by these gravitational wave detectors.  As the starting point, in this proposal several specific improvements to the exiting gravitational wave templates will be applied.  Existing various black hole models will be adopted.  Comparison of project results with future observations should enable the PI to distinguish different black hole population models.