{"total":15,"items":[{"citing_arxiv_id":"2607.02110","ref_index":175,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"Black Boxes in Black Hole Imaging","primary_cat":"physics.hist-ph","submitted_at":"2026-07-02T12:43:48+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":4.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"Some opacity in black hole imaging methods is compatible with reliable inference under specified conditions, but GRMHD models of Sgr A* exhibit problematic opacity that signals model limitations.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2606.23773","ref_index":158,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"Modern tidal interaction models for rapid binary population synthesis: II. Binary black hole formation, mergers, and spins","primary_cat":"astro-ph.HE","submitted_at":"2026-06-22T18:00:00+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":4.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"Simulations with a new tidal model in COMPAS predict that merging binary black holes from isolated evolution are strongly biased to low effective spins, with one third below 0.05 and only 3% above 0.5, but the high-spin fraction rises to 15% at higher redshifts.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2606.10823","ref_index":100,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"AGN-driven BBH mergers: Black hole populations and hierarchical growth across the AGN parameter space","primary_cat":"astro-ph.GA","submitted_at":"2026-06-09T13:04:12+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":5.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"Semi-analytical models show AGN disks produce repeated BBH mergers with a high-mass tail beyond the pair-instability gap, more efficiently at low viscosity, with spin and mass-ratio signatures that can match events like GW190521.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2606.06592","ref_index":35,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"Measuring a Black Hole's Area Immediately after Merger: A Direct-Wave Test of Hawking's Area Law","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2026-06-04T18:00:04+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":7.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"A gravitational-wave method infers the Kerr-equivalent horizon area from direct waves in the near-merger signal of GW250114, yielding consistency with the Kerr remnant and a new test of Hawking's area law.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2606.06209","ref_index":236,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"The first decade of gravitational-wave measurements of black hole spins","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2026-06-04T14:14:46+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":0.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"A review summarizing formation-channel predictions, waveform effects, and population-level constraints on stellar-mass black hole spins from the first decade of gravitational-wave observations.","context_count":1,"top_context_role":"background","top_context_polarity":"background","context_text":"aligned) with as few as 100 events. If a single channel dominated and spin magnitudes were large, formation channels could be distinguished with as few as O(10) events [232-234]. Similar optimistic predictions were made for the prospects of distinguishing hierarchical mergers [235] and using their unique features to measure mixture fractions between chan- nels [236]. However, we are now in the regime of catalogs including over 100 events, and the picture has proven more complicated that these early works imagined. 4.1. Spin magnitudes Strongly-modeled approaches using Beta distributions [ 234,238-240] or Truncated Gaussians [4] have found consistent evidence for small spin magnitudes since the first catalog of LVK observations (GWTC-1), and this has been reinforced with non-parametric"},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2606.01580","ref_index":56,"ref_count":2,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"Primordial black holes spin from cosmological first-order phase transitions","primary_cat":"astro-ph.CO","submitted_at":"2026-06-01T02:26:19+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":7.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"The paper derives a quantitative relationship showing that the Kerr parameter a_* of PBHs from first-order phase transitions increases with latent heat α and decreases with transition rate β, reaching typical values of 10^{-3}.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2604.14290","ref_index":80,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.9,"is_internal_anchor":false,"paper_title":"Emergent structure in the binary black hole mass distribution and implications for population-based cosmology","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2026-04-15T18:00:03+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":5.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"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.","context_count":1,"top_context_role":"background","top_context_polarity":"background","context_text":"in young, globular and nuclear star clusters: the effect of metallicity, spin and cluster properties,\" Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc.505, 339-358 (2021), arXiv:2103.05016 [astro-ph.HE]. [79] Davide Gerosa and Maya Fishbach, \"Hierarchical merg- ers of stellar-mass black holes and their gravitational- wave signatures,\" Nature Astron.5, 749-760 (2021), arXiv:2105.03439 [astro-ph.HE]. [80] Maya Fishbach, Daniel E. Holz, and Ben Farr, \"Are LIGO's Black Holes Made From Smaller Black Holes?\" Astrophys. J. Lett.840, L24 (2017), arXiv:1703.06869 [astro-ph.HE]. [81] Chase Kimball, Colm Talbot, Christopher P. L. Berry, MatthewCarney, MichaelZevin, EricThrane, andVicky Kalogera, \"Black Hole Genealogy: Identifying Hierarchi- cal Mergers with Gravitational Waves,\" Astrophys."},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2604.06090","ref_index":86,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.9,"is_internal_anchor":false,"paper_title":"Posterior Predictive Checks for Gravitational-wave Populations: Limitations and Improvements","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2026-04-07T17:03:44+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":6.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"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","context_count":1,"top_context_role":"background","top_context_polarity":"unclear","context_text":"D. Lasky, and E. Thrane, Astrophys. J.994, 261 (2025), arXiv:2509.04706 [astro-ph.HE]. [83] The LIGO Scientific, Virgo, and KAGRA Col- laborations (LIGO Scientific, VIRGO, KAGRA), arXiv:2508.18080 (2025). [84] S. Miller and S. Winney,GW-PPCs(2026). [85] M. P¨ urrer, M. Hannam, and F. Ohme, Phys. Rev. D 93, 084042 (2016), arXiv:1512.04955 [gr-qc]. [86] S. Vitale, R. Lynch, V. Raymond, R. Sturani, J. Veitch, and P. Graff, Phys. Rev. D95, 064053 (2017), arXiv:1611.01122 [gr-qc]. [87] P. Ajithet al., Phys. Rev. Lett.106, 241101 (2011), arXiv:0909.2867 [gr-qc]. [88] K. K. Y. Ng, S. Vitale, A. Zimmerman, K. Chatziioan- nou, D. Gerosa, and C.-J. Haster, Phys. Rev. D98, 083007 (2018), arXiv:1805.03046 [gr-qc]."},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2601.09607","ref_index":65,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"Confronting eikonal and post-Kerr methods with numerical evolution of scalar field perturbations in spacetimes beyond Kerr","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2026-01-14T16:30:02+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":5.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"Numerical simulations benchmark the eikonal and post-Kerr approximations for quasinormal modes in deformed Kerr spacetimes, quantifying their errors relative to expected observational precision.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2601.07908","ref_index":42,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.9,"is_internal_anchor":false,"paper_title":"Signatures of a subpopulation of hierarchical mergers in the GWTC-4 gravitational-wave dataset","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2026-01-12T19:00:00+00:00","verdict":"UNVERDICTED","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":6.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"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.","context_count":1,"top_context_role":"background","top_context_polarity":"background","context_text":"7, arising from the remaining orbital an- gular momenta of their progenitors [35-39], with spread due to their mass ratio and spins [40, 41]. Since hierar- chical assembly produces more massive black holes, it is a natural candidate for a method to fill the PISN gap. These predictions for spin and spin-tilt are robust across assumptions for binary star evolution [42]. To disentangle hierarchical mergers from first- generation counterparts, it is useful to look in parame- ters that are both well-measured and in which we expect distinct behavior. The rapid spins, unequal mass ratios, and/or high masses of several individual events-namely, GW190521 [11], GW231123 [14] and GW241011 [43]- have led to their interpretation as hierarchical merg-"},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2510.22698","ref_index":54,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"A new group of low-spin $50-70M_\\odot$ Black Holes and the high pair-instability mass cutoff","primary_cat":"astro-ph.HE","submitted_at":"2025-10-26T14:48:06+00:00","verdict":null,"verdict_confidence":null,"novelty_score":null,"formal_verification":null,"one_line_summary":null,"context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2508.09965","ref_index":10,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"GW231123: A Possible Primordial Black Hole Origin","primary_cat":"astro-ph.CO","submitted_at":"2025-08-13T17:32:14+00:00","verdict":"CONDITIONAL","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":6.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"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.","context_count":1,"top_context_role":"background","top_context_polarity":"background","context_text":"01075 [gr-qc]. [8] M. C. Miller and D. P. Hamilton, Production of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters, Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 330, 232 (2002), arXiv:astro- ph/0106188. [9] M. Fishbach, D. E. Holz, and B. Farr, Are LIGO's Black Holes Made From Smaller Black Holes?, Astrophys. J. Lett. 840, L24 (2017), arXiv:1703.06869 [astro-ph.HE]. [10] B. Mckernanet al., Constraining Stellar-mass Black Hole Mergers in AGN Disks Detectable with LIGO, Astrophys. J. 866, 66 (2018), arXiv:1702.07818 [astro-ph.HE]. [11] D. Gerosa and E. Berti, Are merging black holes born from stellar collapse or previous mergers?, Phys. Rev. D 95, 124046 (2017), arXiv:1703.06223 [gr-qc]. [12] C. L. Rodriguez, M. Zevin, P."},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2507.23663","ref_index":23,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"Disentangling spinning and nonspinning binary black hole populations with spin sorting","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2025-07-31T15:40:32+00:00","verdict":"CONDITIONAL","verdict_confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":5.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"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.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2111.03606","ref_index":30,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.9,"is_internal_anchor":false,"paper_title":"GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2021-11-05T16:43:17+00:00","verdict":"ACCEPT","verdict_confidence":"HIGH","novelty_score":4.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"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.","context_count":1,"top_context_role":"background","top_context_polarity":"background","context_text":"the detector network improves [25], the rate of discovery increases. Further searches for GW transients in O3b data have been conducted focusing on intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) binaries (with a component ≳ 65M⊙ and a final BH ≳ 100M⊙) [26], subsolar-mass binaries [27], grav- itationally lensed signals [28], signals coincident with gamma-ray bursts [29], cosmic strings [30], and both min- imally modeled short-duration ( ≲ O(1) s, such as from supernova explosions) [31] and long-duration ( ≳ O(1) s, such as from deformed magnetars or from accretion-disk instabilities) [32] signals. However, no high-significance candidates for types of signals other than the CBCs re- ported here have yet been found. We begin with an overview of the status of the Ad-"},{"citing_arxiv_id":"2108.01045","ref_index":207,"ref_count":1,"confidence":0.98,"is_internal_anchor":true,"paper_title":"GWTC-2.1: Deep Extended Catalog of Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run","primary_cat":"gr-qc","submitted_at":"2021-08-02T17:09:29+00:00","verdict":"ACCEPT","verdict_confidence":"HIGH","novelty_score":4.0,"formal_verification":"none","one_line_summary":"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.","context_count":0,"top_context_role":null,"top_context_polarity":null,"context_text":null}],"limit":50,"offset":0}