Establishing Milestones for Super Massive Black Hole Binary Detection Using Pulsar Timing Arrays

Evidence for a gravitational wave background (GWB) was found by Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments in 2023, beginning the journey to discover the source of these GWs. A population of inspiraling super-massive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) is the theorized origin of this GWB. Identifying an individual SMBHB would support this theory and enable a range of multimessenger studies if the host galaxy is identified. In this talk, we establish the milestones for an individual SMBHB discovery. We use three complementary techniques for discrete binary searches on realistic simulated datasets to determine their capabilities. These search models range in signal complexity, from an elementary anisotropy basis, to a simplified waveform template, and finally the fully deterministic binary model. With datasets of increasing timespan, we can explore the sensitivities of each search procedure as the signal intensifies. By varying the sky position and GW frequency of the binary we also uncover the biases inherent to each parameter. We will present how these methods compare in model selection and parameter estimation, especially that of sky localization for host galaxy identification. These results will contextualize future results from real PTA datasets.