REVIEW 14 cited by
A Parameter-Free Tour of the Binary Black Hole Population
Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.
This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.
SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event
T0 review · schema-true
One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.
pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp
abstract
The continued operation of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors is enabling the first detailed measurements of the mass, spin, and redshift distributions of the merging binary black hole population. Our present knowledge of these distributions, however, is based largely on strongly parameteric models; such models typically assume the distributions of binary parameters to be superpositions of power laws, peaks, dips, and breaks, and then measure the parameters governing these "building block" features. Although this approach has yielded great progress in initial characterization of the compact binary population, the strong assumptions entailed leave it often unclear which physical conclusions are driven by observation and which by the specific choice of model. In this paper, we instead model the merger rate of binary black holes as an unknown \textit{autoregressive process} over the space of binary parameters, allowing us to measure the distributions of binary black hole masses, redshifts, component spins, and effective spins with near-complete agnosticism. We find the primary mass spectrum of binary black holes to be doubly-peaked, with a fairly flat continuum that steepens at high masses. We identify signs of unexpected structure in the redshift distribution of binary black holes: a uniform-in-comoving volume merger rate at low redshift followed by a rise in the merger rate beyond redshift $z\approx 0.5$. Finally, we find that the distribution of black hole spin magnitudes is unimodal and concentrated at small but non-zero values, and that spin orientations span a wide range of spin-orbit misalignment angles but are also moderately unlikely to be truly isotropic.
Forward citations
Cited by 14 Pith papers
-
A Four-dimensional Model-agnostic Probe into the Astrophysical Origins of Binary Black Hole Subpopulations
A GPU-accelerated binned Gaussian process yields the first model-agnostic 4D BBH population in (m1, q, χeff, χp), revealing four mass-based subpopulations and new spin-mass-ratio correlations.
-
Comparing astrophysical models to gravitational-wave data in the observable space
Demonstrates direct comparison of observable compact-binary populations from GW data to astrophysical models, with unbiased inference shown possible and applied to O3 data.
-
Joint population and strong-lensing inference for resolved gravitational-wave events probes the black-hole merger rate beyond the peak of star formation
Joint strong-lensing and population inference on resolved gravitational-wave events finds no lensed events and tightens constraints on the black-hole merger rate peak redshift and high-redshift tail.
-
Forbidden Formation Histories: The Binary Black Hole Merger Rate Disfavors Long Delay Times
Deconvolution of the GWTC-4.0 BBH merger rate reveals that long-delay tails in the delay time distribution are forbidden, constraining progenitor formation histories to decline more steeply than the star formation rat...
-
Second-Generation Mass Peak in the Gravitational-Wave Population as a Probe of Globular Clusters
Dynamical formation in globular clusters produces a robust second black-hole mass peak at ~70 solar masses from second-generation mergers when the first-generation spectrum is truncated by pair-instability supernovae.
-
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...
-
Measurement prospects for the pair-instability mass cutoff with gravitational waves
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 l...
-
Gravitational-wave constraints on the pair-instability mass gap and nuclear burning in massive stars
GWTC-4 data analysis yields a pair-instability mass gap lower edge at 44.3^{+5.9}_{-3.5} M_⊙, an S-factor of 268^{+195}_{-116} keV b for ^{12}C(α,γ)^{16}O, and two populations supporting both direct formation and hier...
-
The Chirp-Mass Ladder: A New Rung Emerges
GWTC-5 chirp-mass peaks form a ~1.9-spaced ladder with a new ~19 M⊙ rung matching predicted 2G+3G mergers, unifying prior 1G+2G spin-transition groups under one hierarchical scenario.
-
The Chirp-Mass Ladder: A New Rung Emerges
The chirp-mass distribution of GW-detected binary black holes shows a ladder of peaks doubling in mass, with a new intermediate peak at 19 solar masses confirming a prior prediction from the hierarchical merger model.
-
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 metho...
-
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 ...
-
The first decade of gravitational-wave measurements of black hole spins
A decade of gravitational-wave data shows most merging stellar-mass black holes have small spins, with subdominant fast-spinning, misaligned, and hierarchical-merger populations.
-
The first decade of gravitational-wave measurements of black hole spins
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.
Discussion (0). Sign in to comment.