GWTC-4.0 data shows low-spin black holes up to 70 solar masses, moving the low-spin cutoff to 68.5 solar masses and favoring a high pair-instability mass gap.
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Are LIGO’s Black Holes Made From Smaller Black Holes?
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abstract
One proposed formation channel for stellar mass black holes (BHs) is through hierarchical mergers of smaller BHs. Repeated mergers between comparable mass BHs leave an imprint on the spin of the resulting BH, since the final BH spin is largely determined by the orbital angular momentum of the binary. We find that for stellar mass BHs forming hierarchically the distribution of spin magnitudes is universal, with a peak at $a \sim 0.7$ and little support below $a \sim 0.5$. We show that the spin distribution is robust against changes to the mass ratio of the merging binaries, the initial spin distribution of the first generation of BHs, and the number of merger generations. While we assume an isotropic distribution of initial spin directions, spins that are preferentially aligned or antialigned do not qualitatively change our results. We also consider a "cluster catastrophe" model for BH formation in which we allow for mergers of arbitrary mass ratios and show that this scenario predicts a unique spin distribution that is similar to the universal distribution derived for major majors. We explore the ability of spin measurements from ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors to constrain hierarchical merger scenarios. We apply a hierarchical Bayesian mixture model to mock GW data and argue that the fraction of BHs that formed through hierarchical mergers will be constrained with $\mathcal{O}(100)$ LIGO binary black hole detections, while with $\mathcal{O}(10)$ detections we could falsify a model in which all component BHs form hierarchically.
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GW231123's masses and high spins are consistent with primordial black holes that accreted mass and angular momentum in the early universe within the standard PBH framework.
Maximum-likelihood-based posterior predictive checks detect model misspecification better than event-level versions for uncertain spin tilts, but current detector sensitivity limits their power; the Gaussian Component Spins model underpredicts high spin magnitudes and overpredicts anti-aligned tilts
GWTC-4 data show a transition to nearly all hierarchical mergers above 46 solar masses, with the hierarchical rate peaking at 15.7 solar masses, indicating mass-dependent substructure in black hole spins.
Numerical simulations benchmark the eikonal and post-Kerr approximations for quasinormal modes in deformed Kerr spacetimes, quantifying their errors relative to expected observational precision.
Spin sorting with the default spin model distinguishes spinning and nonspinning binary black hole populations in simulations and shows real data rule out a fully nonspinning population but allow mixed ones with up to 80% nonspinning sources.
B-spline agnostic reconstruction of binary black hole masses from GWTC-4.0 reveals multiple features and a logarithmic hierarchy that impacts Hubble constant measurements, with a low-mass subpopulation isolation method to mitigate systematics.
GWTC-2.1 adds eight new high-significance compact binary coalescence events to the prior catalog, extending the observed black hole mass range and including candidates inside the pair-instability mass gap.
GWTC-3 catalogs 90 compact binary coalescence events with p_astro > 0.5 from LIGO and Virgo's first three observing runs, including the first confident neutron star-black hole binaries.
citing papers explorer
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A new group of low-spin $50-70M_\odot$ Black Holes and the high pair-instability mass cutoff
GWTC-4.0 data shows low-spin black holes up to 70 solar masses, moving the low-spin cutoff to 68.5 solar masses and favoring a high pair-instability mass gap.
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GW231123: A Possible Primordial Black Hole Origin
GW231123's masses and high spins are consistent with primordial black holes that accreted mass and angular momentum in the early universe within the standard PBH framework.
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Posterior Predictive Checks for Gravitational-wave Populations: Limitations and Improvements
Maximum-likelihood-based posterior predictive checks detect model misspecification better than event-level versions for uncertain spin tilts, but current detector sensitivity limits their power; the Gaussian Component Spins model underpredicts high spin magnitudes and overpredicts anti-aligned tilts
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Signatures of a subpopulation of hierarchical mergers in the GWTC-4 gravitational-wave dataset
GWTC-4 data show a transition to nearly all hierarchical mergers above 46 solar masses, with the hierarchical rate peaking at 15.7 solar masses, indicating mass-dependent substructure in black hole spins.
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Confronting eikonal and post-Kerr methods with numerical evolution of scalar field perturbations in spacetimes beyond Kerr
Numerical simulations benchmark the eikonal and post-Kerr approximations for quasinormal modes in deformed Kerr spacetimes, quantifying their errors relative to expected observational precision.
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Disentangling spinning and nonspinning binary black hole populations with spin sorting
Spin sorting with the default spin model distinguishes spinning and nonspinning binary black hole populations in simulations and shows real data rule out a fully nonspinning population but allow mixed ones with up to 80% nonspinning sources.
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Emergent structure in the binary black hole mass distribution and implications for population-based cosmology
B-spline agnostic reconstruction of binary black hole masses from GWTC-4.0 reveals multiple features and a logarithmic hierarchy that impacts Hubble constant measurements, with a low-mass subpopulation isolation method to mitigate systematics.
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GWTC-2.1: Deep Extended Catalog of Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
GWTC-2.1 adds eight new high-significance compact binary coalescence events to the prior catalog, extending the observed black hole mass range and including candidates inside the pair-instability mass gap.
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GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
GWTC-3 catalogs 90 compact binary coalescence events with p_astro > 0.5 from LIGO and Virgo's first three observing runs, including the first confident neutron star-black hole binaries.