ASTROPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGER GW150914

ASTROPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGER GW150914

The discovery of the gravitational-wave (GW) source GW150914 with the Advanced LIGO detectors provides the first observational evidence for the existence of binary black hole (BH) systems that inspiral and merge within the age of the universe. Such BH mergers have been predicted in two main types of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Arggarwal, Nancy, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Brown, N. M., Buikema, Aaron, Essick, Reed Clasey, Gras, Slawomir, Isogai, Tomoki, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, Miller, Jeffrey B., Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Oelker, Eric Glenn, Tse, Maggie, Vaulin, Ruslan, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Yam, William, Yu, Haocun, Zhang, F., Aggarwal, Nancy, Libson, Adam A., MacInnis, Myron E, Mason, Kenneth R, Mittleman, Richard K, Shoemaker, David H, Zucker, Michael E, Bodiya, Timothy P., Donovan, Frederick J, Evans, Matthew J, Fritschel, Peter K
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102859
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0026-3877
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0219-9706
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4147-2560
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1510-4921
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8018-3278
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1347-0680
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8150-7062
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2544-1596
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2700-0767
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2815-7387
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6550-3045
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9635-7527
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8459-4499
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9409-5757
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-3187
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5163-683X
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8196-9267
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2047-3166
Description
Summary:The discovery of the gravitational-wave (GW) source GW150914 with the Advanced LIGO detectors provides the first observational evidence for the existence of binary black hole (BH) systems that inspiral and merge within the age of the universe. Such BH mergers have been predicted in two main types of formation models, involving isolated binaries in galactic fields or dynamical interactions in young and old dense stellar environments. The measured masses robustly demonstrate that relatively "heavy" BHs ($\gtrsim 25$ ${M}_{\odot }$) can form in nature. This discovery implies relatively weak massive-star winds and thus the formation of GW150914 in an environment with a metallicity lower than about 1/2 of the solar value. The rate of binary-BH (BBH) mergers inferred from the observation of GW150914 is consistent with the higher end of rate predictions ($\gtrsim 1$ Gpc−3 yr−1) from both types of formation models. The low measured redshift ($z\simeq 0.1$) of GW150914 and the low inferred metallicity of the stellar progenitor imply either BBH formation in a low-mass galaxy in the local universe and a prompt merger, or formation at high redshift with a time delay between formation and merger of several Gyr. This discovery motivates further studies of binary-BH formation astrophysics. It also has implications for future detections and studies by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, and GW detectors in space.

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