Gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers yield values for both the black hole remnant mass M and it's spin a, with the 169a values collected so far crowding significantly around their average aˉ=0.6869±0.087. Could this crowding relate directly to the Davies phase transition point at a=0.68125 from black hole thermodynamics? I argue that a necessary challenge for such a connection requires a consistent application of the thermodynamic fluctuation theory that follows from black hole thermodynamics (BHT). Specifically, necessary are a correct choice of fluctuating variables, as well as thermal equilibrium between the event horizon at the Hawking temperature ∼μK and the outside universe ∼3K. I show that the former requirement follows in straightforward fashion from the BHT of the Kerr model, while the later requires an accretion disk following the Novikov-Thorne accretion disk model. I construct a thermodynamic fluctuation theory meeting both these requirements. My results open the possibility that black hole mergers are based on some dynamical model (not known to me) with a limiting attractor state at the Davies point.
@article{arxiv.2601.04379,
title = {Could black hole thermodynamics play a role in black hole mergers?},
author = {George Ruppeiner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.04379},
year = {2026}
}