Related papers: Binary black hole spins: model selection with GWTC…
One fundamental goal of the newly born gravitational wave astronomy is discovering the origin of the observed binary black hole mergers. Towards this end, identifying features in the growing wealth of data may help in distinguishing…
Angular momentum transport in high-mass stars is commonly modeled by extrapolating the behavior of better-observed low-mass stars. According to the conventional picture, the cores of most black hole progenitors lose almost all of their…
Recent work paints a conflicting portrait of the distribution of black hole spins in merging binaries measured with gravitational waves. Some analyses find that a significant fraction of merging binaries contain at least one black hole with…
The relative spin orientations of black holes (BHs) in binaries encode their evolutionary history: BHs assembled dynamically should have isotropically distributed spins, while spins of the BHs originating in the field should be aligned with…
Attempts to understand the formation of binary black hole (BBH) systems detected via gravitational wave (GW) emission are affected by many unknowns and uncertainties, from both the observational and theoretical (astrophysical modelling)…
We detail the population properties of merging compact objects using 158 mergers from the cumulative Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog 4.0, which includes three types of binary mergers: binary neutron star, neutron star--black hole…
The complex astrophysical processes leading to the formation of binary black holes and their eventual merger are imprinted on the spins of the individual black holes. We revisit the astrophysical distribution of those spins based on…
Understanding the astrophysical origins of binary black holes requires accurate and flexible modeling of multi-dimensional population properties. In this paper, using a data-driven framework based on binned Gaussian processes, we…
Astrophysically motivated population models for binary black hole observables are often insufficient to capture the imprints of multiple formation channels. This is mainly due to the strongly parametrized nature of such investigations.…
Theoretical studies of angular momentum transport suggest that isolated stellar-mass black holes are born with negligible dimensionless spin magnitudes $\chi \lesssim 0.01$. However, recent gravitational-wave observations indicate $\gtrsim…
With the recent release of the second gravitational-wave transient catalogue (GWTC-2), which introduced dozens of new detections, we are at a turning point of gravitational wave astronomy, as we are now able to directly infer constraints on…
The observation of gravitational-wave signals from merging black-hole binaries enables direct measurement of the properties of the black holes. An individual observation allows measurement of the black-hole masses, but only limited…
The first direct detections of gravitational waves from merging binary black holes open a unique window into the binary black hole formation environment. One promising environmental signature is the angular distribution of the black hole…
The astrophysical origins of the binary black hole systems seen with gravitational waves are still not well understood. However, features in the distribution of black-hole masses, spins, redshifts, and eccentricities provide clues into how…
We perform a hierarchical Bayesian analysis of the GWTC-2 catalog to investigate the mixed scenario in which the merger events are explained by black holes of both astrophysical and primordial origin. For the astrophysical scenario we adopt…
Population studies of stellar-mass black-hole binaries have become major players in gravitational-wave astronomy. The underlying assumptions are that the targeted source parameters refer to the same quantities for all events in the catalog…
Peculiar velocity encodes rich information about the formation, dynamics, evolution, and merging history of binary black holes. In this work, we employ a hierarchical Bayesian model to infer the peculiar velocity distribution of binary…
The origins of coalescing binary black holes (BBHs) detected by the advanced LIGO/Virgo are still under debate, and clues may be present in the joint mass-spin distribution of these merger events. Here we construct phenomenological models…
Spin and mass properties provide essential clues in distinguishing the origins of coalescing black holes (BHs). With a dedicated semiparametric population model for the coalescing binary black holes (BBHs), we identify two distinct…
Gravitational waves from binary black holes have the potential to yield information on both of the intrinsic parameters that characterize the compact objects: their masses and spins. While the component masses are usually resolvable, the…