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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Tests of General Relativity with GWTC-3
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The ever-increasing number of detections of gravitational waves (GWs) from compact binaries by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors allows us to perform ever-more sensitive tests of general relativity (GR) in the dynamical and strong-field regime of gravity. We perform a suite of tests of GR using the compact binary signals observed during the second half of the third observing run of those detectors. We restrict our analysis to the 15 confident signals that have false alarm rates $\leq 10^{-3}\, {\rm yr}^{-1}$. In addition to signals consistent with binary black hole (BH) mergers, the new events include GW200115_042309, a signal consistent with a neutron star--BH merger. We find the residual power, after subtracting the best fit waveform from the data for each event, to be consistent with the detector noise. Additionally, we find all the post-Newtonian deformation coefficients to be consistent with the predictions from GR, with an improvement by a factor of ~2 in the -1PN parameter. We also find that the spin-induced quadrupole moments of the binary BH constituents are consistent with those of Kerr BHs in GR. We find no evidence for dispersion of GWs, non-GR modes of polarization, or post-merger echoes in the events that were analyzed. We update the bound on the mass of the graviton, at 90% credibility, to $m_g \leq 2.42 \times 10^{-23} \mathrm{eV}/c^2$. The final mass and final spin as inferred from the pre-merger and post-merger parts of the waveform are consistent with each other. The studies of the properties of the remnant BHs, including deviations of the quasi-normal mode frequencies and damping times, show consistency with the predictions of GR. In addition to considering signals individually, we also combine results from the catalog of GW signals to calculate more precise population constraints. We find no evidence in support of physics beyond GR.
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- abstract The ever-increasing number of detections of gravitational waves (GWs) from compact binaries by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors allows us to perform ever-more sensitive tests of general relativity (GR) in the dynamical and strong-field regime of gravity. We perform a suite of tests of GR using the compact binary signals observed during the second half of the third observing run of those detectors. We restrict our analysis to the 15 confident signals that have false alarm rates $\leq 10^{-3}\, {\rm yr}^{-1}$. In addition to signals consistent with binary black hole (BH) mergers, t
- background the number of BBH observations by the LIGO-Virgo- KAGRA (LVK) collaboration [2-5] has steadily increased, reaching∼200detections over four observing runs [6]. These observations have provided unprecedented insights ∗ aravichandran@umassd.edu into the properties of black holes and the dynamics of their mergers, which have been crucial for testing general relativity (GR) in the strong-field regime [7] and un- derstanding the astrophysical processes that lead to the formation of BBHs [8]. In most s
- background making GW astronomy an increasingly promising avenue for the study of open problems in fundamental physics and cosmology. A central question that GW astronomy aims to address is theblack hole hypothesis- whether all the astrophysical objects believed to be BHs are indeed well-modeled by the classical BHs of general relativity. To date, all obser- vations of GW events [8], as well as interferometric ob- servations of BH environments using the Event Horizon Telescope [9, 10] are consistent with cl
- background Lopez-Aleman, "Black Hole Spectroscopy: Testing General Relativity through Gravitational Wave Observations," Class. Quant. Grav.21, 787-804 (2004) [arXiv:gr-qc/0309007]. [9] E. Berti, V. Cardoso, and C. M. Will, "On Gravitational-Wave Spectroscopy of Massive Black Holes with the Space Interferometer LISA," Phys. Rev. D73, 064030 (2006) [arXiv:gr-qc/0512160]. [10] R. Abbottet al.(LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, and KAGRA Collaboration), "Tests of General Relativity with GWTC-3
- background 2975 [gr-qc] . [5] O. Trivedi, A. Gurrola, and R. J. Scherrer, (2026), arXiv:2603.04375 [gr-qc] . [6] B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific, Virgo), Phys. Rev. Lett.116, 221101 (2016), [Erratum: Phys.Rev.Lett. 121, 129902 (2018)], arXiv:1602.03841 [gr-qc] . [7] R. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific, Virgo), Phys. Rev. D103, 122002 (2021), arXiv:2010.14529 [gr-qc] . [8] R. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific, VIRGO, KAGRA), (2021), arXiv:2112.06861 [gr-qc] . [9] S. Chandrasekhar, The mathematical theory of
- background of the Fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Observing Run," (2025), 2508.18082. [9] B. P. Abbottet al.(LIGO Scientific, Virgo), Phys. Rev. D100, 104036 (2019), arXiv:1903.04467 [gr-qc]. [10] R. Abbottet al.(LIGO Scientific, Virgo), Phys. Rev. X 11, 021053 (2021), arXiv:2010.14527 [gr-qc]. [11] R. Abbottet al.(LIGO Scientific, VIRGO, KAGRA), Phys. Rev. D112, 084080 (2025), arXiv:2112.06861 [gr- qc]. [12] G. F. Giudice, M. McCullough, and A. Urbano, JCAP 1610, 001 (2016), arXiv:1605.01209 [hep-ph]. [13] V. Car
- dataset arXiv:1602.03838 [gr-qc]. [3] B. P. Abbottet al., Phys. Rev. Lett.116, 061102 (2016), arXiv:1602.03837 [gr-qc]. [4] B. P. Abbottet al., Phys. Rev. D100, 104036 (2019), arXiv:1903.04467 [gr-qc]. [5] R. Abbottet al., Phys. Rev. D103, 122002 (2021), arXiv:2010.14529 [gr-qc]. [6] R. Abbottet al., Phys. Rev. D112, 084080 (2025), arXiv:2112.06861 [gr-qc]. [7] A. G. Abacet al., (2026), arXiv:2603.19019 [gr-qc]. [8] A. G. Abacet al., (2026), arXiv:2603.19020 [gr-qc]. [9] A. G. Abacet al., (2026), arXiv:
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citing papers explorer
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GW231123: a Binary Black Hole Merger with Total Mass 190-265 $M_{\odot}$
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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GW240925 and GW250207: Astrophysical Calibration of Gravitational-wave Detectors
The first informative astrophysical calibration of gravitational-wave detectors is reported using GW240925 and GW250207.
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Black-Hole Scattering in Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet: Numerical Relativity Meets Analytics
Numerical relativity simulations of black hole scattering in Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity agree closely with effective-one-body analytic predictions.
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Gravity Echoes from Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
Future microhertz detections combined with nanohertz pulsar terms can serve as gravity echoes to measure supermassive black hole binary inspiral rates from hundreds to thousands of years in the past.
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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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Foundations of Direct Waves in Schwarzschild Ringdown
Direct waves in filtered Schwarzschild ringdown are the anti-causal filter-pole contribution sourced by near-horizon trajectory dynamics and do not vanish.
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Numerical polology: towards next-generation model-building for cosmology
A numerical polology sampler maps ghost- and tachyon-free regions of bosonic EFT coupling spaces and finds new particle branches, including a spin-one mode in general rank-2 tensor theories.
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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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Cascading amplification of gravitational waves triggered by environment in dynamical Chern-Simons gravity
An external dynamical environment forms a resonant cavity with a black hole in dCS gravity that triggers Mathieu instability in the scalar sector, producing cascading amplification of gravitational waves via a delayed secondary burst.
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Contrastive self-supervised convolutional autoencoder for core-collapse supernova gravitational-wave detection
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Properties of natural polynomials for Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes
Natural polynomials for Schwarzschild and Kerr quasinormal modes are Pollaczek-Jacobi polynomials with complex parameters, with recurrence peaking at the physical overtone index for Schwarzschild.
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End-to-End Population Inference from Gravitational-Wave Strain using Transformers
Dingo-Pop uses a transformer to perform amortized, end-to-end population inference from GW strain data in seconds, bypassing per-event Monte Carlo sampling.
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Lessons from binary dynamics of inspiralling equal-mass boson-star mergers
Numerical simulations of equal-mass boson-star mergers reveal larger waveform deviations from black-hole binaries in late inspiral and merger, plus odd multipole excitations for certain scalar-field phases, with some signals degenerate until IMR consistency tests are applied.
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Beyond Three Terms: Continued Fractions for Rotating Black Holes in Modified Gravity
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The First Model-Independent Upper Bound on Micro-lensing Signature of the Highest Mass Binary Black Hole Event GW231123
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Quasinormal modes of rotating black holes beyond general relativity in the WKB approximation
Higher-order WKB accurately computes quasinormal mode frequencies for rotating black holes beyond general relativity, with errors below current GW measurement precision for GW250114.
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Scalar fields around black hole binaries in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA
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A Robust and Efficient F-statistic-based Framework for Consistent Bayesian Inference of Compact Binary Coalescences
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Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114
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A Gaussian process framework for testing general relativity with gravitational waves
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Parameter inference of millilensed gravitational waves using neural spline flows
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On the universality of late-time ringdown tail
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Impact of the Einstein Telescope's duty cycle on the estimation of binary black holes parameters
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Resonant transmission of scalar waves through rotating traversable wormhole
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How do the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA's Heavy Black Holes Form? No evidence for core-collapse Intermediate-mass black holes in GWTC-4
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Ringdown Analysis of GW250114 with Orthonormal Modes
Orthonormal QNM analysis of GW250114 raises the significance of the first overtone of the ℓ=m=2 mode from 82.5% to 99.9% and detects no significant deviation from Kerr predictions.