Related papers: What is the most massive gravitational-wave source…
As catalogs of gravitational-wave transients grow, new records are set for the most extreme systems observed to date. The most massive observed black holes probe the physics of pair instability supernovae while providing clues about the…
We derive the gravitational waveform from the collapse of a rapidly rotating supermassive star (SMS) core leading directly to a seed of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in axisymmetric numerical-relativity simulations. We find that the peak…
This study investigates the origins of GW230529, delving into its formation from massive stars within isolated binary systems. Utilizing population synthesis models, we present compelling evidence that the neutron star component forms…
The discovery of the gravitational-wave source GW150914 with the Advanced LIGO detectors provides the first observational evidence for the existence of binary black-hole systems that inspiral and merge within the age of the Universe. Such…
Over a hundred gravitational-wave signals have now been detected from the mergers of black holes and neutron stars, but other sources of gravitational waves have not yet been discovered. Some of the most violent explosive events in the…
GW230814 was detected by the LIGO Livingston observatory with a signal-to-noise ratio of 42.4 making it the loudest gravitational-wave signal in the GWTC-4.0 catalog. The source is consistent with a binary black hole coalescence similar to…
Gravitational-wave observations of compact binaries have the potential to uncover the distribution of masses and angular momenta of black holes and neutron stars in the universe. The binary components' physical parameters can be inferred…
We report the observation of gravitational waves from two binary black hole coalescences during the fourth observing run of the LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA detector network, GW241011 and GW241110. The sources of these two signals are characterized…
In February 2016 the first observation of gravitational waves were reported. The source of this event, denoted as GW150914, was identified as the merger of two black holes with a about 30 solar masses each, at a distance of approximately…
Supermassive black hole binary systems (SMBHBs) should be the most powerful sources of gravitational waves (GWs) in the Universe. Once Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) detect the stochastic GW background from their cosmic merger history,…
The fourth gravitational wave transient catalog~(GWTC-4) has enabled empirical probes of the theorized pair-instability gap in the higher end of the binary black hole~(BBH) mass-spectrum. In this letter, using flexibly parametrized models,…
The heaviest black holes discovered through gravitational waves have masses that are difficult to explain with current standard stellar models. This discrepancy may be due to a series of hierarchical mergers, where the observed black holes…
We present a detailed analysis of GW250114, the loudest gravitational-wave signal observed to date, using a waveform model capable of describing binary black holes in generic (eccentric and precessing) orbits. Our analysis builds on…
GW190521, the most massive binary black hole merger confidently detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, is the first gravitational-wave observation of an intermediate-mass black hole. The signal was followed approximately 34 days…
On May 21, 2019 Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors observed a gravitational-wave transient GW190521, the heaviest binary black-hole merger detected to date with the remnant mass of 142$\,$M$_\odot$ that was published recently. This…
Gravitational waves deliver information in exquisite detail about astrophysical phenomena, among them the collision of two black holes, a system completely invisible to the eyes of electromagnetic telescopes. Models that predict…
For a brief moment, a binary black hole (BBH) merger can be the most powerful astrophysical event in the visible universe. Here we present a model fit for this gravitational-wave peak luminosity of nonprecessing quasicircular BBH systems as…
Gravitational wave observations of eccentric binary black hole mergers will provide unequivocal evidence for the formation of these systems through dynamical assembly in dense stellar environments. The study of these astrophysically…
If binaries consisting of two 100 Msun black holes exist they would serve as extraordinarily powerful gravitational-wave sources, detectable to redshifts of z=2 with the advanced LIGO/Virgo ground-based detectors. Large uncertainties about…
We evaluate the mass of the black holes of GW150914 at their event horizons via quasi-local energy approach and obtain the values of 71 and 57 solar masses, compared to their asymptotic values of 36 and 29 units, respectively, as reported…