Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
Name
Abbott_2019_ApJL_882_L24.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
4.77 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b88a5ddeeedf859ba2a18c6658e5c547
Author(s)
LIGO Scientific Collaboration
Virgo Collaboration
Date Issued
2019
Journal
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We present results on the mass, spin, and redshift distributions with phenomenological population models using the 10 binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected in the first and second observing runs completed by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We constrain properties of the BBH mass spectrum using models with a range of parameterizations of the BBH mass and spin distributions. We find that the mass distribution of the more massive BH in such binaries is well approximated by models with no more than 1% of BHs more massive than 45 M and a power-law index of (90% credibility). We also show that BBHs are unlikely to be composed of BHs with large spins aligned to the orbital angular momentum. Modeling the evolution of the BBH merger rate with redshift, we show that it is flat or increasing with redshift with 93% probability. Marginalizing over uncertainties in the BBH population, we find robust estimates of the BBH merger rate density of R= (90% credibility). As the BBH catalog grows in future observing runs, we expect that uncertainties in the population model parameters will shrink, potentially providing insights into the formation of BHs via supernovae, binary interactions of massive stars, stellar cluster dynamics, and the formation history of BHs across cosmic time.
MIT Department
LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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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.
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DOI of Published Version
10.3847/2041-8213/AB3800
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/AB3800
