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.
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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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abstract
Gravitational waves provide a unique tool for observational astronomy. While the first LIGO--Virgo catalogue of gravitational-wave transients (GWTC-1) contains eleven signals from black hole and neutron star binaries, the number of observations is increasing rapidly as detector sensitivity improves. To extract information from the observed signals, it is imperative to have fast, flexible, and scalable inference techniques. In a previous paper, we introduced BILBY: a modular and user-friendly Bayesian inference library adapted to address the needs of gravitational-wave inference. In this work, we demonstrate that BILBY produces reliable results for simulated gravitational-wave signals from compact binary mergers, and verify that it accurately reproduces results reported for the eleven GWTC-1 signals. Additionally, we provide configuration and output files for all analyses to allow for easy reproduction, modification, and future use. This work establishes that BILBY is primed and ready to analyse the rapidly growing population of compact binary coalescence gravitational-wave signals.
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representative citing papers
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.
Bayesian analysis of GW230627 and GW250114 finds no deviation from GR at 4PN and 4.5PN orders, setting the first empirical baseline with 90% intervals of order O(1)-O(10).
New frequency-domain models IMRPhenomXHM_NSBH, SEOBNRv5HM_ROM_NRTidalv3_NSBH, and IMRPhenomXPHM_NSBH bring higher-order modes and tidal effects to fast NSBH waveform templates.
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.
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.
A hierarchical analysis of 69 GWTC-3 black-hole merger candidates yields an effective compactness consistent with C=0.5 and no evidence for a low-compactness exotic population.
No GWTC-3 event robustly prefers a non-BBH merger morphology once low-frequency cutoffs are raised; apparent low-compactness modes are noise artifacts, with GW231123 left as an unresolved special case.
A targeted hierarchical search refines GstLAL low-latency gravitational wave candidates to improve sky localization by 16.75% on average using O3 data and has been adopted for O4.
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.
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%.
Semi-analytic waveform model for scalar environments around black hole binaries is validated against numerical relativity and applied to LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA data to obtain upper limits on scalar densities with tentative evidence in GW190728.
F-statistic framework analytically maximizes over distance and polarization to enable faster Bayesian inference of compact binary coalescences with a new evidence formulation that matches full frequency-domain results at lower cost.
GW250114 data confirm the remnant is consistent with a Kerr black hole and bound the dominant quadrupolar mode frequency to within a few percent of the GR prediction, with constraints tighter than prior multi-event catalogs.
Bayesian inference on LVK O1-O3 events with eccentric aligned-spin waveforms yields log10 Bayes factors of 1.77-4.75 favoring eccentricity for GW200129, GW190701 and GW200208_22, and >99.5% probability that at least one of 57 events is eccentric under an astrophysically motivated rate prior.
Bilby-antiglitch jointly models astrophysical signals and quasi-physical glitches to recover true source properties from simulated gravitational wave data contaminated by loud non-Gaussian transients.
ET-Δ outperforms ET-2L on luminosity distance and source-frame masses for BBH events because its redundancy produces higher multi-detector uptime under realistic duty-cycle modeling.
Implements consistent line-of-sight acceleration corrections in quasi-circular and eccentric GW waveform models, applies them to GWTC-3 events, and reports no substantial evidence for acceleration while warning of bias from inconsistent harmonic treatment.
Hybrid SPA-plus-FFT frequency-domain version of SEOBNRv5THM for quasi-circular spin-aligned BNS systems matches time-domain baseline accuracy while cutting computational cost for long signals.
Spin prior choices propagate into tests of GR via the 1.5PN deviation parameter δφ̂3 in a non-trivial, event-dependent way, with stronger effects for short-inspiral events and partial degeneracy with χ_eff when the deviation is included.
GWTC BBH mergers have typical recoil kicks of ~300–330 km/s, with retention of only ~2–3% in globular clusters; hierarchical-merger prospects depend on both retention and post-kick re-centering.
GW250114 data confirm the remnant black hole ringdown frequencies lie within 30% of Kerr predictions and that the final horizon area is larger than the sum of the progenitors' areas to high credibility.
A neural-network-accelerated hierarchical Bayesian pipeline is developed and validated on a phenomenological model to constrain EMRI population parameters from LISA data.
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.
citing papers explorer
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Testing the Kerr hypothesis beyond the quadrupole with GW241011
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.
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Joint inference of line-of-sight acceleration and orbital eccentricity in neutron-star--black-hole binaries
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.
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Tests of general relativity at the fourth post-Newtonian order with GW230627 and GW250114
Bayesian analysis of GW230627 and GW250114 finds no deviation from GR at 4PN and 4.5PN orders, setting the first empirical baseline with 90% intervals of order O(1)-O(10).
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Fast gravitational waveform models for quasi-circular coalescences of neutron star--black hole binaries
New frequency-domain models IMRPhenomXHM_NSBH, SEOBNRv5HM_ROM_NRTidalv3_NSBH, and IMRPhenomXPHM_NSBH bring higher-order modes and tidal effects to fast NSBH waveform templates.
-
A universal framework to identify eccentric binary mergers: GW200105 case study
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.
-
GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
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.
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Establishing Compactness as a Population Observable in Gravitational-Wave Astronomy
A hierarchical analysis of 69 GWTC-3 black-hole merger candidates yields an effective compactness consistent with C=0.5 and no evidence for a low-compactness exotic population.
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Compactness Inference in Gravitational-Wave Mergers with PhenomDECO: Catalog Benchmarks and Robustness Diagnostics
No GWTC-3 event robustly prefers a non-BBH merger morphology once low-frequency cutoffs are raised; apparent low-compactness modes are noise artifacts, with GW231123 left as an unresolved special case.
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Method to get Better Sky Maps in a GstLAL Low-Latency Analysis
A targeted hierarchical search refines GstLAL low-latency gravitational wave candidates to improve sky localization by 16.75% on average using O3 data and has been adopted for O4.
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Eccentric and unbound compact binaries in the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA catalog: parameter estimation and waveform systematics with SEOBNRv6EHM
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.
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Plunge-Merger-Ringdown Tests of General Relativity with GW250114
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%.
-
Scalar fields around black hole binaries in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA
Semi-analytic waveform model for scalar environments around black hole binaries is validated against numerical relativity and applied to LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA data to obtain upper limits on scalar densities with tentative evidence in GW190728.
-
A Robust and Efficient F-statistic-based Framework for Consistent Bayesian Inference of Compact Binary Coalescences
F-statistic framework analytically maximizes over distance and polarization to enable faster Bayesian inference of compact binary coalescences with a new evidence formulation that matches full frequency-domain results at lower cost.
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Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114
GW250114 data confirm the remnant is consistent with a Kerr black hole and bound the dominant quadrupolar mode frequency to within a few percent of the GR prediction, with constraints tighter than prior multi-event catalogs.
-
Evidence for eccentricity in the population of binary black holes observed by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA
Bayesian inference on LVK O1-O3 events with eccentric aligned-spin waveforms yields log10 Bayes factors of 1.77-4.75 favoring eccentricity for GW200129, GW190701 and GW200208_22, and >99.5% probability that at least one of 57 events is eccentric under an astrophysically motivated rate prior.
-
A parametric signal plus noise inference framework for short duration non-Gaussian noise transients
Bilby-antiglitch jointly models astrophysical signals and quasi-physical glitches to recover true source properties from simulated gravitational wave data contaminated by loud non-Gaussian transients.
-
Impact of the Einstein Telescope's duty cycle on the estimation of binary black holes parameters
ET-Δ outperforms ET-2L on luminosity distance and source-frame masses for BBH events because its redundancy produces higher multi-detector uptime under realistic duty-cycle modeling.
-
Line-of-sight acceleration in compact binaries with higher harmonics and eccentricity
Implements consistent line-of-sight acceleration corrections in quasi-circular and eccentric GW waveform models, applies them to GWTC-3 events, and reports no substantial evidence for acceleration while warning of bias from inconsistent harmonic treatment.
-
Speed and accuracy for long signals: Frequency-domain effective-one-body waveforms for compact binary coalescences
Hybrid SPA-plus-FFT frequency-domain version of SEOBNRv5THM for quasi-circular spin-aligned BNS systems matches time-domain baseline accuracy while cutting computational cost for long signals.
-
The Impact of Spin Priors on Parameterized Tests of General Relativity
Spin prior choices propagate into tests of GR via the 1.5PN deviation parameter δφ̂3 in a non-trivial, event-dependent way, with stronger effects for short-inspiral events and partial degeneracy with χ_eff when the deviation is included.
-
Recoil kicks from binary black hole mergers in GWTC catalogs: implications for retention and hierarchical mergers
GWTC BBH mergers have typical recoil kicks of ~300–330 km/s, with retention of only ~2–3% in globular clusters; hierarchical-merger prospects depend on both retention and post-kick re-centering.
-
GW250114: testing Hawking's area law and the Kerr nature of black holes
GW250114 data confirm the remnant black hole ringdown frequencies lie within 30% of Kerr predictions and that the final horizon area is larger than the sum of the progenitors' areas to high credibility.
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Constraints on the extreme mass-ratio inspiral population from LISA data
A neural-network-accelerated hierarchical Bayesian pipeline is developed and validated on a phenomenological model to constrain EMRI population parameters from LISA data.
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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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Tests of General Relativity with GW230529: a neutron star merging with a lower mass-gap compact object
Parameterized inspiral tests on GW230529 find consistency with GR, with |δφ̂_{-2}| ≲ 8×10^{-5} and ℓ_GB ≲ 0.51 M_⊙ in ESGB theories.
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Tests of General Relativity with Binary Black Holes from the second LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog
No evidence for deviations from general relativity is found in LIGO-Virgo binary black hole events, with improved constraints on waveform parameters, graviton mass, and ringdown properties.
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Probing globular clusters parameters through gravitational wave lensing with stellar-mass black hole binaries
Simulations of wave-optics lensing of GW150914-like signals by globular clusters recover injected velocity dispersion values for favorable alignments when lens and source parameters are jointly estimated.
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Mapping the star formation peak with LIGO A# and Next-Generation detectors
Simulations show LIGO-A# constrains the peak redshift of binary black hole merger rate (tracing star formation) to ±0.1 in one year, improving to ±0.02 with next-generation detectors.
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Rapid data quality investigations of gravitational-wave events with the Data Quality Report Builder toolkit
DQRbuild toolkit automates data quality vetting for gravitational-wave events, recovering 96% of human-identified issues from O3 with a 24% false alarm rate.
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Improved Constraints on Non-Kerr Deviations from Binary Black Hole Inspirals Using GWTC-4 Data
GWTC-4 inspirals yield tighter constraints on Johannsen parameters α13 and ε3, both consistent with zero and thus with the Kerr geometry.
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Basilic: An end-to-end pipeline for Bayesian burst inference and model classification in gravitational-wave data
Basilic is an end-to-end Bayesian pipeline for gravitational-wave burst inference and model classification, with a case study showing signal degeneracies between binary black hole mergers and cosmic strings.
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The impact of waveform systematics and Gaussian noise on the interpretation of GW231123
The high mass and high spin magnitudes inferred for GW231123 using NRSur7dq4 are robust to waveform systematics and Gaussian noise.
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Validating Prior-informed Fisher-matrix Analyses against GWTC Data
Fisher-matrix methods in GWFish match LIGO/Virgo posteriors reasonably when priors are included, with prior impact scaling with parameter degeneracy, supporting their use for ET forecasts.
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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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Tests of General Relativity with GWTC-3
No evidence for physics beyond general relativity is found in the analysis of 15 GW events from GWTC-3, with consistency in residuals, PN parameters, and remnant properties.
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