Detectability of Modulated X-Rays from LISA’s Supermassive Black Hole Mergers

Abstract

Abstract One of the central goals of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is the detection of gravitational waves from the merger of supermassive black holes. Contrary to stellar-mass black hole mergers, such events are expected to be rich X-ray sources due to the accretion of material from the circumbinary disks onto the black holes. The orbital dynamics before merger is also expected to modulate the resulting X-ray emission via Doppler boosting in a quasiperiodic way and in a simple phase relation with the gravitational wave from the inspiral of the black holes. Detecting the X-ray source would enable a precise and early localization of the binary, thus allowing many telescopes to observe the very moment of the merger. Although identifying the correct X-ray source in the relatively large LISA sky localization will be challenging due to the presence of many confounding point sources, the quasiperiodic modulation may aid in the identification. We explore the practical feasibility of such idea. We simulate populations of merging supermassive black holes, their detection with LISA, and their X-ray light curves using a simple model. Taking the parameters of the X-ray telescope on the proposed NASA Transient Astrophysics Probe, we then design and simulate an observation campaign that searches for the modulated X-ray source while LISA is still observing the inspiral of the black holes. Assuming a fiducial LISA detection rate of 10 mergers per year at redshift closer than 3.5, we expect a few detections of modulated X-ray counterparts over the nominal duration of the LISA mission.