A new gravitational wave event reveals a binary black hole merger with total mass 190-265 solar masses, indicating black holes can form via gravitational-wave driven mergers beyond standard stellar channels.
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dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
Mixed citation behavior. Most common role is method (52%).
abstract
We present dynesty, a public, open-source, Python package to estimate Bayesian posteriors and evidences (marginal likelihoods) using Dynamic Nested Sampling. By adaptively allocating samples based on posterior structure, Dynamic Nested Sampling has the benefits of Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms that focus exclusively on posterior estimation while retaining Nested Sampling's ability to estimate evidences and sample from complex, multi-modal distributions. We provide an overview of Nested Sampling, its extension to Dynamic Nested Sampling, the algorithmic challenges involved, and the various approaches taken to solve them. We then examine dynesty's performance on a variety of toy problems along with several astronomical applications. We find in particular problems dynesty can provide substantial improvements in sampling efficiency compared to popular MCMC approaches in the astronomical literature. More detailed statistical results related to Nested Sampling are also included in the Appendix.
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representative citing papers
The first informative astrophysical calibration of gravitational-wave detectors is reported using GW240925 and GW250207.
GW241011 data shows consistency with Kerr black holes for both quadrupole and octupole moments and delivers the first observational bounds on spin-induced octupole deviations.
The central compact object 1E 1207.4-5209 emits pulsed radio waves at its 0.4-second spin period, revealing it as a faint radio pulsar.
LRD host galaxies show average metallicity 0.08 Z_sun with narrow stable range, challenging pristine-gas formation models while ruling out typical local AGN.
All five NSBH events are consistent with zero line-of-sight acceleration; the joint posterior for GW200105_162426 disfavors both zero LOSA and zero eccentricity at 90% credibility.
Introduces MGIC_rv, an information criterion that combines conditional RV likelihood with an effective parameter count for selecting multi-GP models focused on radial velocities.
Deep interferometric observations of a z≈1.12 barred spiral reveal bar-driven molecular inflows at a rate matching the galaxy's star formation rate of ~36 M⊙/yr.
A reference-frequency-independent detection statistic for eccentric binary mergers is introduced and applied to GW200105, yielding ln B ≤ 0.9 in favor of the eccentric aligned-spin model over the quasi-circular precessing model.
GreyRing model based on greybody factors reproduces numerical relativity ringdown signals with mismatches of order 10^{-6} and enables a new post-merger consistency test of general relativity applied to GW250114.
Presents a practical fully time-domain end-to-end likelihood for gravitational-wave inference with structured linear algebra and GPU acceleration.
LIGO and Virgo detected 39 compact binary coalescence events in O3a, including 13 new ones, with black hole binaries up to 150 solar masses and the first significantly asymmetric mass ratios.
UVJ colors saturate below log(sSFR) ~ -10.5; new UV/MIR color-color diagrams allow more efficient selection of galaxies with substantially lower ongoing star formation.
Panchromatic JWST spectrum of WASP-121 b detects SiO and measures refractory-to-volatile ratios 3x stellar, consistent with mixed solid-gas accretion or migration with continued solid accretion.
Reanalysis retracts TOI-1272c as a planet due to stellar activity, finds slightly eccentric orbits for TOI-1694b and c, and provides updated parameters with smaller uncertainties for both systems.
ACG models embed the observationally preferred phantom-crossing dark energy behavior inside a consistent Horndeski Lagrangian and achieve data fits of similar quality to w0waCDM while being narrowed by perturbative probes.
SEOBNRv6EHM reduces parameter biases for eccentric binaries versus prior models and shows mild support for eccentricity in five catalog events plus comparable unbound fits for three high-mass events.
NIHAO simulations reproduce the Rd-r0 relation and its mild evolution from z=2 to z=0 through stellar feedback without dark matter modifications.
Neural network surrogate approximates precessing compact binary gravitational waveforms up to 1000x faster than the base EOB model with validated accuracy.
pyEFPEHM extends prior PN models to include higher-order quasi-circular phasing, generalized precession solutions, and eccentric corrections up to 1PN in selected multipoles for eccentric precessing binaries with matter effects.
Unmodeled point-mass lensing produces a spurious nonzero graviton mass posterior in GW231123 that vanishes when lensing is included in the analysis.
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
Simulations show a 40-50 solar-mass black-hole cutoff is not guaranteed to be confidently recovered from GWTC-4-like catalogs, spurious detections are unlikely, and O4 data would reduce cutoff-mass uncertainty by at least 20 percent while yielding only a lower bound on the carbon-alpha reaction rate
GW250114 data constrains GR deviations in merger amplitude to 10% and frequency to 4% at 90% CL, with first bounds on the (4,4) mode frequency at 6%.
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Gravitational-wave astronomy requires population-informed parameter estimation
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Basilic: An end-to-end pipeline for Bayesian burst inference and model classification in gravitational-wave data
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Impact of the SNe Ia Magnitude Transition at 20 Mpc on Cosmological Parameter Estimation
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GW190711_030756 and GW200114_020818: astrophysical interpretation of two asymmetric binary black hole mergers in the IAS catalog
Two asymmetric BBH mergers are characterized with mass ratios 0.35 and ≤0.20; one shows high spins, negative χ_eff, and strong precession, suggesting an emerging population of massive rapidly spinning systems.
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Accelerating parameter estimation for parameterized tests of general relativity with gravitational-wave observations
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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.
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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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Improved Constraints on Non-Kerr Deviations from Binary Black Hole Inspirals Using GWTC-4 Data
Bayesian constraints from GWTC-4 binary black hole inspirals show Johannsen metric deformation parameters α13 and ε3 consistent with zero, supporting the Kerr hypothesis.
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Bayesian inference for compact binary coalescences with BILBY: Validation and application to the first LIGO--Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalogue
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