Source Confusion of Massive Black Hole Binaries for the Taiji Mission

Abstract

We systematically investigate the source confusion of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) for the Taiji space-based gravitational wave mission. Source confusion, arising from the overlap of signals in both time and frequency domains, can degrade parameter recovery accuracy. To assess this effect, we simulate three representative models MBHB populations to estimate event overlap events. Assuming 100 detections per year, only 0.31-4.2 overlaps are expected annually. Based on Fisher information matrix with the $\texttt{IMRPhenomD}$ and $\texttt{IMRPhenomHM}$ waveform models, we find that overlap significantly enlarges parameter uncertainties, while the inclusion of higher-order modes (HMs) effectively mitigates this effect. Severe confusion ($Δ\mathcal{M}_z / \mathcal{M}_z<$ 0.2%) occurs in fewer than 0.14% across the three population models. The full Bayesian analysis further corroborates the Fisher predictions, and also reveals that HMs help break key parameter degeneracies, with or without signal overlap. These findings underscore the importance of incorporating HMs for accurate inference in future space-based observations.