The Low Effective Spin of Binary Black Holes and Implications for Individual Gravitational-wave Events

Miller, S.; Callister, T. A.; Farr, W. M.

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab80c0

Cited by 105 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…The probability that GW170729 is of hierarchical origin (either 1G+2G or 2G+2G) is 4%. GW151226, which has the most confidently measured non-zero spin (Abbott et al 2016d(Abbott et al , 2019aMiller et al 2020)-we find that = c Z Z log 6.5…”

Section: Odds Ratios For the Hierarchical Merger Scenariomentioning

confidence: 75%

Black Hole Genealogy: Identifying Hierarchical Mergers with Gravitational Waves

Kimball

Talbot

Berry

et al. 2020

ApJ

139

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In dense stellar environments, the merger products of binary black hole mergers may undergo additional mergers. These hierarchical mergers are naturally expected to have higher masses than the first generation of black holes made from stars. The components of hierarchical mergers are expected to have significant characteristic spins, imprinted by the orbital angular momentum of the previous mergers. However, since the population properties of first-generation black holes are uncertain, it is difficult to know if any given merger is first-generation or hierarchical. We use observations of gravitational waves to reconstruct the binary black hole mass and spin spectrum of a population including the possibility of hierarchical mergers. We employ a phenomenological model that captures the properties of merging binary black holes from simulations of globular clusters. Inspired by recent work on the formation of low-spin black holes, we include a zero-spin subpopulation. We analyze binary black holes from LIGO and Virgo's first two observing runs, and find that this catalog is consistent with having no hierarchical mergers. We find that the most massive system in this catalog, GW170729, is mostly likely a firstgeneration merger, having a 4% probability of being a hierarchical merger assuming a 5×10 5 M e globular cluster mass. Using our model, we find that 99% of first-generation black holes in coalescing binaries have masses below 44 M e , and the fraction of binaries with near-zero component spins is less than 0.16 (90% probability). Upcoming observations will determine if hierarchical mergers are a common source of gravitational waves.

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Section: Odds Ratios For the Hierarchical Merger Scenariomentioning

confidence: 75%

Black Hole Genealogy: Identifying Hierarchical Mergers with Gravitational Waves

Kimball

Talbot

Berry

et al. 2020

ApJ

139

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show abstract

“…They are chosen to be consistent with GW190814 [2], in particular the source frame chirp mass M c = (m 1 m 2 ) 3/5 /(m 1 + m 2 ) 1/5 and the inclination. Consistent with the majority of observed signals to date [4], we only consider binaries with a vanishing inspiral spin χ eff [128][129][130]. We do not expect this particular choice to affect our results due to the approximate decoupling between the inspiral and precession dynamics [119,131].…”

Section: Simulated Gravitational-wave Signalsmentioning

confidence: 85%

Measuring precession in asymmetric compact binaries

Pratten

Schmidt

Buscicchio

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. Research

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Gravitational-wave observations of merging compact binaries hold the key to precision measurements of the objects' masses and spins. General relativistic precession, caused by spins misaligned with the orbital angular momentum, is considered a crucial tracer for determining the binary's formation history and environment and it also improves mass estimates; its measurement is therefore of particular interest with wide-ranging implications. Precession leaves a characteristic signature in the emitted gravitational-wave signal that is even more pronounced in binaries with highly unequal masses. The recent observations of GW190412 and GW190814 have confirmed the existence of such asymmetric compact binaries. Here we perform a systematic study to assess the confidence in measuring precession in gravitational-wave observations of high-mass-ratio binaries and our ability to measure the mass of the lighter companion in neutron-star-black-hole-type systems. Using Bayesian model selection, we show that precession can be decisively identified for low-mass binaries with mass ratios as low as 1:3 and mildly precessing spins with magnitudes 0.4, even in the presence of systematic waveform errors.

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“…However, inferred spins are more sensitive than other parameters (e.g., component masses) to the choice of the prior. A reanalysis of GW events with a population-informed spin prior recently suggested that previous binary component spin measurements may have been overestimated because of the use of an uninformative prior [137]. Collecting more observations will enable us to make more confident statements on BH spins in the future.…”

Section: Orientation and Spinsmentioning

confidence: 99%

GW190412: Observation of a binary-black-hole coalescence with asymmetric masses

Abbott¹,

Abbott²,

Abraham³

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. D

547

408

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We report the observation of gravitational waves from a binary-black-hole coalescence during the first two weeks of LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run. The signal was recorded on April 12, 2019 at 05∶30∶44 UTC with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 19. The binary is different from observations during the first two observing runs most notably due to its asymmetric masses: a ∼30 M ⊙ black hole merged with a ∼8 M ⊙ black hole companion. The more massive black hole rotated with a dimensionless spin magnitude between 0.22 and 0.60 (90% probability). Asymmetric systems are predicted to emit gravitational waves with stronger contributions from higher multipoles, and indeed we find strong evidence for gravitational radiation beyond the leading quadrupolar order in the observed signal. A suite of tests performed on GW190412 indicates consistency with Einstein's general theory of relativity. While the mass ratio of this system differs from all previous detections, we show that it is consistent with the population model of stellar binary black holes inferred from the first two observing runs.

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The Low Effective Spin of Binary Black Holes and Implications for Individual Gravitational-wave Events

Cited by 105 publications

References 69 publications

Black Hole Genealogy: Identifying Hierarchical Mergers with Gravitational Waves

Black Hole Genealogy: Identifying Hierarchical Mergers with Gravitational Waves

Measuring precession in asymmetric compact binaries

GW190412: Observation of a binary-black-hole coalescence with asymmetric masses

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