Constraining the Properties of the Proposed Supermassive Black Hole System in 3C66B: Limits from Pulsar Timing

Frederick A. Jenet
Andrea Lommen
Shane L. Larson s.larson@usu.edu, Utah State University
Linqing Wen

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Published by American Astronomical Society in Astrophysical Journal. Publisher's PDF available through remote link. May require subscription if user is not on the USU Network.

Abstract

General expressions for the expected timing residuals induced by gravitational wave (G-wave) emission from a slowly evolving, eccentric, binary black hole system are derived here for the first time. These expressions are used to search for the signature of G-waves emitted by the proposed supermassive binary black hole system in 3C 66B. We use data from long-term timing observations of the radio pulsar PSR B1855+09. For the case of a circular orbit, the emitted G-waves should generate clearly detectable fluctuations in the pulse-arrival times of PSR B1855+09. Since no G-waves are detected, the waveforms are used in a Monte Carlo analysis in order to place limits on the mass and eccentricity of the proposed black hole system. The analysis presented here rules out the adopted system with 95% confidence. The reported analysis also demonstrates several interesting features of a G-wave detector based on pulsar timing.