Exploring features in the binary black hole population

Tiwari, Vaibhav 2022. Exploring features in the binary black hole population. Astrophysical Journal 928 (2) , 155. 10.3847/1538-4357/ac589a

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Abstract

Vamana is a mixture model framework that infers the astrophysical distribution of chirp mass, mass ratio, and spin component aligned with the orbital angular momentum for the binary black holes (BBH) population. We extend the mixing components in this framework to also model the redshift evolution of merger rate and report all the major one- and two-dimensional features in the BBH population using the 69 gravitational-wave signals detected with a false alarm rate <1 yr−1 in the third Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-3). Endorsing our previous report and a recent corroborating report from LIGO Scientific, Virgo, and KAGRA Collaborations, we observe the chirp mass distribution has multiple peaks and a lack of mergers with chirp masses 10–12 M⊙. In addition, we observe that aligned spins show mass dependence with heavier binaries exhibiting larger spins, the mass ratio shows a dependence on the chirp mass but not on the aligned spin, and the redshift evolution of the merger rate for the peaks in the mass distribution is disparate. These features possibly reflect the astrophysics associated with the BBH formation channels. However, additional observations are needed to improve our limited confidence in them.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Publisher:	American Astronomical Society
ISSN:	0004-637X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 May 2022
Date of Acceptance:	23 February 2022
Last Modified:	05 Jan 2024 05:22
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/149874

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