Signatures of Massive Black Hole Merger Host Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations I: Unique Galaxy Morphologies in Imaging

Understand

Low-frequency gravitational wave experiments such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna and pulsar timing arrays are expected to detect individual massive black hole (MBH) binaries and mergers.

• However, secure methods of identifying the exact host galaxy of each MBH merger amongst the large number of galaxies in the gravitational wave localization region are currently lacking.
• We investigate the distinct morphological signatures of MBH merger host galaxies, using the Romulus25 cosmological simulation.
• We produce mock telescope images of 201 simulated galaxies in Romulus25 hosting recent MBH mergers, through stellar population synthesis and dust radiative transfer.