Probing seed black holes using future gravitational-wave detectors
  Identifying the properties of the first generation of seeds of massive black
holes is key to understanding the merger history and growth of galaxies.
Mergers between ~100 solar mass seed black holes generate gravitational waves
in the 0.1-10Hz band that lies between the sensitivity bands of existing
ground-based detectors and the planned space-based gravitational wave detector,
the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). However, there are proposals for
more advanced detectors that will bridge this gap, including the third
generation ground-based Einstein Telescope and the space-based detector DECIGO.
In this paper we demonstrate that such future detectors should be able to
detect gravitational waves produced by the coalescence of the first generation
of light seed black-hole binaries and provide information on the evolution of
structure in that era. These observations will be complementary to those that
LISA will make of subsequent mergers between more massive black holes. We
compute the sensitivity of various future detectors to seed black-hole mergers,
and use this to explore the number and properties of the events that each
detector might see in three years of observation. For this calculation, we make
use of galaxy merger trees and two different seed black hole mass distributions
in order to construct the astrophysical population of events. We also consider
the accuracy with which networks of future ground-based detectors will be able
to measure the parameters of seed black hole mergers, in particular the
luminosity distance to the source. We show that distance precisions of ~30% are
achievable, which should be sufficient for us to say with confidence that the
sources are at high redshift.
