Gravitational-wave background from supermassive black holes without merger trees: Tidally regulated mergers and direct inference from the NANOGrav 15 yr data
We present a semi-analytic framework that computes the gravitational-wave background (GWB) from supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries by direct integration of an $N$-body-recalibrated extended Press-Schechter accretion kernel, bypassing Monte Carlo merger trees entirely. The calculation is resolution-free and fast en...