Compactness peaks: An astrophysical interpretation of the mass distribution of merging binary black holes

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Galaudage, Shanika, Lamberts, Astrid
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Galaudage, Shanika
Lamberts, Astrid
author_facet Galaudage, Shanika
Lamberts, Astrid
contents With the growing number of detections of binary black hole mergers, we are beginning to probe structure in the distribution of masses. A recent study by Schneider et al. proposes that isolated binary evolution of stripped stars naturally gives rise to the peaks at chirp masses $\sim 8 M_\odot$, $14 M_\odot$ in the chirp mass distribution and explains the dearth of black holes between $\approx 10-12 M_\odot$ in chirp mass. The gap in chirp mass results from an apparent gap in the component mass distribution between $m_1, m_2 \approx 10-15 M_\odot$ and the specific pairing of these black holes. This component mass gap results from the variation in core compactness of the progenitor, where a drop in compactness of Carbon-Oxygen core mass will no longer form black holes from core collapse. We develop a population model motivated by this scenario to probe the structure of the component mass distribution of binary black holes consisting of two populations: 1) two peak components to represent black holes formed in the compactness peaks, and 2) a powerlaw component to account for any polluting events, these are binaries that may have formed from different channels (e.g. dynamical). We perform hierarchical Bayesian inference to analyse the events from the third gravitational-wave transient catalogue (GWTC-3) with this model. We find that there is a preference for the lower mass peak to drop off sharply at $\sim 11 M_\odot$ and the upper mass peak to turn on at $\sim 13 M_\odot$, in line with predictions from Schneider et al. However, there is no clear evidence for a gap. We also find mild support for the two populations to have different spin distributions. In addition to these population results, we highlight observed events of interest that differ from the expected population distribution of compact objects formed from stripped stars.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_17561
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Compactness peaks: An astrophysical interpretation of the mass distribution of merging binary black holes
Galaudage, Shanika
Lamberts, Astrid
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
With the growing number of detections of binary black hole mergers, we are beginning to probe structure in the distribution of masses. A recent study by Schneider et al. proposes that isolated binary evolution of stripped stars naturally gives rise to the peaks at chirp masses $\sim 8 M_\odot$, $14 M_\odot$ in the chirp mass distribution and explains the dearth of black holes between $\approx 10-12 M_\odot$ in chirp mass. The gap in chirp mass results from an apparent gap in the component mass distribution between $m_1, m_2 \approx 10-15 M_\odot$ and the specific pairing of these black holes. This component mass gap results from the variation in core compactness of the progenitor, where a drop in compactness of Carbon-Oxygen core mass will no longer form black holes from core collapse. We develop a population model motivated by this scenario to probe the structure of the component mass distribution of binary black holes consisting of two populations: 1) two peak components to represent black holes formed in the compactness peaks, and 2) a powerlaw component to account for any polluting events, these are binaries that may have formed from different channels (e.g. dynamical). We perform hierarchical Bayesian inference to analyse the events from the third gravitational-wave transient catalogue (GWTC-3) with this model. We find that there is a preference for the lower mass peak to drop off sharply at $\sim 11 M_\odot$ and the upper mass peak to turn on at $\sim 13 M_\odot$, in line with predictions from Schneider et al. However, there is no clear evidence for a gap. We also find mild support for the two populations to have different spin distributions. In addition to these population results, we highlight observed events of interest that differ from the expected population distribution of compact objects formed from stripped stars.
title Compactness peaks: An astrophysical interpretation of the mass distribution of merging binary black holes
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.17561