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The spin magnitude of stellar-mass binary black holes evolves with the mass: evidence from gravitational wave data

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arxiv 2406.01679 v1 pith:3LL52OIE submitted 2024-06-03 gr-qc astro-ph.HE

Grégoire Pierra , Simone Mastrogiovanni , Stéphane Perriès This is my paper · ORCID
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abstract

The relation between the mass and spin of stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) has been proposed to be a smoking gun for the presence of multiple formation channels for compact objects. First-generation black holes (BHs) formed by isolated binary stellar progenitors are expected to have nearly aligned small spins, while nth-generation BBHs resulting from hierarchical mergers are expected to have misaligned and higher spins. Leveraging data from the third observing run O3 (GWTC-2.1 and GWTC-3), we employ hierarchical Bayesian methods to conduct a comprehensive study of possible correlations between the BBH masses and spins. We use parametric models that either superpose independent BBH populations or explicitly model a mass-spin correlation. We unveil strong evidence for a correlation between normalized spin magnitudes and masses of BBHs. The correlation can be explained as a transition from a BBH population with low spins at low masses and higher spins for higher masses. Although the spin magnitude distribution at high masses lacks robust constraints, we find strong evidence that a transition between two BBH populations with different spin distributions should happen at 40-50 $M_{\odot}$. In particular, we find that the population of BBHs above 40-50 $M_{\odot}$ should compose the $\sim 2 \%$ of the overall population, with a spin magnitude $\chi$ peaking around 0.7, consistently with the fraction of nth-generation BBHs formed by hierarchical mergers in the latest state-of-the-art BBH genesis simulations.

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Cited by 8 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Periodic line-of-sight velocity-driven modulations to gravitational waves emitted by compact binaries in Keplerian outer orbits

    gr-qc 2026-07 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    Periodic non-relativistic line-of-sight velocity of a compact binary’s centre of mass produces 4PN phase and amplitude modulations that improve Fisher forecasts of tertiary mass and outer-orbit size for A+, ET, DECIGO...

  2. Assessing the waveform systematics from parameter estimation to population inference with eccentricity

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Eccentric waveform-model differences, small per event, accumulate across the GWTC-4 catalog and alter inferred redshift evolution and effective-spin population distributions.

  3. Uncovering Hierarchical Sub-Population of Binary Black Holes

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A flexible six-component fit to 259 LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA black-hole mergers finds a roughly geometric sequence of mass peaks but no aligned-spin signal except in the lowest-mass component.

  4. Signatures of a subpopulation of hierarchical mergers in the GWTC-4 gravitational-wave dataset

    gr-qc 2026-01 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    Using a joint effective-spin and precession-spin model on 155 gravitational-wave events, the authors infer that the hierarchical (second-generation) merger fraction rises sharply above ~46 M_sun and peaks again near 1...

  5. A new group of low-spin $50-70M_\odot$ Black Holes and the high pair-instability mass cutoff

    astro-ph.HE 2025-10 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    GWTC-4.0 reveals low-spin black holes up to ~68.5 Msun, implying a higher pair-instability mass cutoff and a lower 12C(alpha,gamma)16O rate.

  6. Nowhere left to hide: revealing realistic gravitational-wave populations in high dimensions and high resolution with PixelPop

    astro-ph.HE 2025-06 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Modeling all significant correlations with the nonparametric model PixelPop recovers the true black-hole merger rate in a simulated 400-event gravitational-wave catalog, while simpler models introduce bias.

  7. Population of Binary Black Holes Inferred from One Hundred and Fifty Gravitational Wave Signals

    astro-ph.HE 2025-10 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    A population analysis of 153 LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA black-hole mergers reports chirp-mass peaks near 8, 14, and 27 solar masses, spaced by ~1.9, which the author interprets as possible hierarchical mergers.

  8. Inferring the pair-instability mass gap from gravitational wave data

    astro-ph.HE 2025-06 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Non-parametric analysis of GWTC-3 finds a transition at roughly 46 solar masses above which the effective spin distribution broadens and becomes consistent with symmetry around zero, consistent with second-generation ...

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