A new model emphasizing secondary mass features and pairing transitions improves spectral siren H0 constraints by ~30% using 142 GW events from GWTC-4.0.
How do the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA's Heavy Black Holes Form? No evidence for core-collapse Intermediate-mass black holes in GWTC-4
2 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
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abstract
We investigate the population properties of binary black holes (BBHs) from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, focusing especially on those in the high-mass range, using the newly released GWTC-4 catalog. For the first time, we search for a subpopulation of low-spin intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) that would indicate formation via stellar core collapse. With the currently available catalog, we find no evidence for such a subpopulation, and set a 90\% upper limit on the merger rate of collapse-formed IMBHs at $0.077~\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. The mass distribution of low-spin (stellar-origin) black holes truncates at $65^{+23}_{-22}\,M_\odot$, consistent with the lower edge of the pair-instability mass gap (PIMG), although we cannot directly determine its upper boundary from current data. Informed by stellar evolution theory, we estimate the upper edge of the PIMG to be $150\pm24\,M_\odot$. We find that the observed IMBHs belong to a high-spin subpopulation, consistent with formation through successive hierarchical mergers.
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Mixture model analysis of LIGO data identifies a ~10% high-spin subpopulation with a1 ≈ 0.9 matching AGN accretion predictions, disfavoring hierarchical mergers at a1 ≈ 0.7 for that group.
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Secondary-Mass Features improve Spectral-Siren $H_0$ Constraints
A new model emphasizing secondary mass features and pairing transitions improves spectral siren H0 constraints by ~30% using 142 GW events from GWTC-4.0.
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High-Spin BBH Subpopulation from AGN Accretion
Mixture model analysis of LIGO data identifies a ~10% high-spin subpopulation with a1 ≈ 0.9 matching AGN accretion predictions, disfavoring hierarchical mergers at a1 ≈ 0.7 for that group.