Related papers: GW231123: extreme spins or microglitches?
On 2023 November 23 the two LIGO observatories both detected GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses $137^{+23}_{-18}\, M_\odot$ and $101^{+22}_{-50}\, M_\odot$ (90\% credible…
The gravitational-wave event GW231123_135430 is the heaviest binary black hole system observed by the LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA Collaboration to date, with the initial analysis indicating the individual black hole masses lie within or above the…
GW231123 is an exceptionally massive binary black hole (BBH) merger with unusually high component spins. Such extreme properties challenge conventional stellar evolution models predicting a black hole mass gap due to pair-instability…
The binary black hole merger GW231123 is both the most massive gravitational-wave event observed and has the highest component spins measured to date. The dimensionless spins of the more massive (primary) and less massive (secondary) black…
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration recently reported GW231123, a black hole merger with total mass of around 190-265 solar mass. This event adds to the growing evidence of "lite" intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) discoveries of…
The recently discovered gravitational wave event GW231123 was interpreted as the merger of two black holes with a total mass of 190-265 $M_\odot$, making it the heaviest such merger detected to date. Whilst much of the post-discovery…
Gravitational waves from black hole binary mergers carry information about the component spins, but inference is sensitive to analysis assumptions, which may be broken by terrestrial noise transients known as glitches. Using a variety of…
An accurate and precise measurement of the spins of individual merging black holes is required to understand their origin. While previous studies have indicated that most of the spin information comes from the inspiral part of the signal,…
On January 14, 2025 the LIGO interferometers detected a gravitational wave from the merger of two black holes, GW250114. Using publicly available information, we estimate that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of GW250114 was $\sim 80$. This…
GW231123 is an exceptional gravitational-wave event consistent with the merger of two massive, highly-spinning black holes. Reliable inference of the source properties is crucial for accurate interpretation of its astrophysical…
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration recently reported an exceptional gravitational-wave event, GW231123. This gravitational-wave signal was assumed to be generated from the merger of a binary black hole system, with source frame masses of…
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 gravitational-wave signal GW190521 is consistent with a binary black hole merger source at redshift 0.8 with unusually high component masses, $85^{+21}_{-14}\,M_{\odot}$ and $66^{+17}_{-18}\,M_{\odot}$, compared to previously reported…
GW231123, the heaviest binary black hole merger detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration to date, lies in the pair-instability mass gap and exhibits unusually high component spins. In this Letter, we show that both merging black holes…
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…
GW231123 exhibits exceedingly massive components and high spins, which challenges the formation of first-generation (1G) black holes from stellar collapse and implies that this event might originate from hierarchical mergers. Here we show…
While the Advanced LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave experiments now regularly observe binary black hole mergers, the evolutionary origin of these events remains a mystery. Analysis of the binary black hole spin distribution may shed light…
The gravitational wave event GW231123 detected by the LIGO interferometers during their fourth observing run features two black holes with source-frame masses of $137^{+23}_{-18} M_\odot$ and $101^{+22}_{-50} M_\odot$ -- in the range of the…
On September 14, 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detected a gravitational-wave transient (GW150914); we characterize the properties of the source and its parameters. The data around the time of the event…
GW231123 represents the most massive binary-black-hole merger detected to date, lying firmly within, or even above, the pair-instability mass gap. The component spins are both exceptionally high ($a_1 = 0.90^{+0.10}_{-0.19}$, $a_2 =…