English

Striking a Chord with Spectral Sirens: multiple features in the compact binary population correlate with $H_0$

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2025-11-13 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

Spectral siren measurements of the Hubble constant (H0H_0) rely on correlations between observed detector-frame masses and luminosity distances. Features in the source-frame mass distribution can induce these correlations. It is crucial, then, to understand (i) which features in the source-frame mass distribution are robust against model (re)parametrization, (ii) which features carry the most information about H0H_0, and (iii) whether distinct features independently correlate with cosmological parameters. We study these questions using real gravitational-wave observations from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaborations' third observing run. Although constraints on H0H_0 are weak, we find that current data reveals several prominent features in the mass distribution, including peaks in the binary black hole source-frame mass distribution near \sim 9 M\rm{M}_{\odot} and \sim 32M\rm{M}_{\odot} and a roll-off at masses above \sim 46M\rm{M}_{\odot}. For the first time using real data, we show that all of these features carry cosmological information and that the peak near \sim 32M\rm{M}_{\odot} consistently correlates with H0H_0 most strongly. Introducing model-independent summary statistics, we show that these statistics independently correlate with H0H_0, exactly what is required to limit systematics within future spectral siren measurements from the (expected) astrophysical evolution of the mass distribution.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.07416,
  title  = {Striking a Chord with Spectral Sirens: multiple features in the compact binary population correlate with $H_0$},
  author = {Utkarsh Mali and Reed Essick},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.07416},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

19 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables