Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger
© 2020 American Physical Society. Two of the dominant channels to produce merging stellar-mass black-hole binaries are believed to be the isolated evolution of binary stars in the field and dynamical formation in star clusters. The first reported black-hole binary event from the third LIGO/Virgo obs...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Physical Society (APS)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135393 |
| _version_ | 1826190260556529664 |
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| author | Gerosa, Davide Vitale, Salvatore Berti, Emanuele |
| author2 | LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| author_facet | LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Gerosa, Davide Vitale, Salvatore Berti, Emanuele |
| author_sort | Gerosa, Davide |
| collection | MIT |
| description | © 2020 American Physical Society. Two of the dominant channels to produce merging stellar-mass black-hole binaries are believed to be the isolated evolution of binary stars in the field and dynamical formation in star clusters. The first reported black-hole binary event from the third LIGO/Virgo observing run (GW190412) is unusual in that it has unequal masses, nonzero effective spin, and nonzero primary spin at 90% confidence interval. We show that this event should be exceedingly rare in the context of both the field and cluster formation scenarios. Interpreting GW190412 as a remnant of a previous black-hole merger provides a promising route to explain its features. If GW190412 indeed formed hierarchically, we show that the region of the parameter space that is best motivated from an astrophysical standpoint (low natal spins and light clusters) cannot accommodate the observation. We analyze public GW190412 LIGO/Virgo data with a Bayesian prior where the more massive black hole resulted from a previous merger and find that this interpretation is equally supported by the data. If the heavier component of GW190412 is indeed a merger remnant, then its spin magnitude is χ1=0.56-0.21+0.19, which is higher than the value previously reported by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:37:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/135393 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:37:32Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | American Physical Society (APS) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1353932023-02-16T20:42:51Z Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger Gerosa, Davide Vitale, Salvatore Berti, Emanuele LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology) MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics © 2020 American Physical Society. Two of the dominant channels to produce merging stellar-mass black-hole binaries are believed to be the isolated evolution of binary stars in the field and dynamical formation in star clusters. The first reported black-hole binary event from the third LIGO/Virgo observing run (GW190412) is unusual in that it has unequal masses, nonzero effective spin, and nonzero primary spin at 90% confidence interval. We show that this event should be exceedingly rare in the context of both the field and cluster formation scenarios. Interpreting GW190412 as a remnant of a previous black-hole merger provides a promising route to explain its features. If GW190412 indeed formed hierarchically, we show that the region of the parameter space that is best motivated from an astrophysical standpoint (low natal spins and light clusters) cannot accommodate the observation. We analyze public GW190412 LIGO/Virgo data with a Bayesian prior where the more massive black hole resulted from a previous merger and find that this interpretation is equally supported by the data. If the heavier component of GW190412 is indeed a merger remnant, then its spin magnitude is χ1=0.56-0.21+0.19, which is higher than the value previously reported by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration. 2021-10-27T20:23:16Z 2021-10-27T20:23:16Z 2020 2021-07-06T18:08:32Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135393 en 10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.125.101103 Physical Review Letters Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Physical Society (APS) APS |
| spellingShingle | Gerosa, Davide Vitale, Salvatore Berti, Emanuele Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger |
| title | Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger |
| title_full | Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger |
| title_fullStr | Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger |
| title_full_unstemmed | Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger |
| title_short | Astrophysical Implications of GW190412 as a Remnant of a Previous Black-Hole Merger |
| title_sort | astrophysical implications of gw190412 as a remnant of a previous black hole merger |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135393 |
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