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Eccentricity Estimate for Black Hole Mergers with Numerical Relativity Simulations

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arxiv 2009.05461 v2 pith:GAQZKTAK submitted 2020-09-11 astro-ph.HE gr-qc

classification astro-ph.HEgr-qc
keywords eccentriceccentricitymergermergersbinaryblackholesimulations
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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abstract

The origin of black hole mergers discovered by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave observatories is currently unknown. GW190521 is the heaviest black hole merger detected so far. Its observed high mass and possible spin-induced orbital precession could arise from the binary having formed following a close encounter. An observational signature of close encounters is eccentric binary orbit; however, this feature is currently difficult to identify due to the lack of suitable gravitational waveforms. No eccentric merger has been previously found. Here we report 611 numerical relativity simulations covering the full eccentricity range and an estimation approach to probe the eccentricity of mergers. Our set of simulations corresponds to $\sim 10^5$ waveforms, comparable to the number used in gravitational wave searches, albeit with coarser mass-ratio and spin resolution. We applied our approach to GW190521 and found that it is the most consistent with a highly eccentric ($e=0.69^{+0.17}_{-0.22}$; 90% credible level) merger within our set of waveforms. This interpretation is supported over a non-eccentric merger with $>10$ Odds ratio if $\gtrsim10\%$ of GW190521-like mergers are highly eccentric. Detectable orbital eccentricity would be evidence against an isolated binary origin, which is otherwise difficult to rule out based on observed mass and spin.

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Forward citations

Cited by 6 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. OpenAlex reports about 48 citations worldwide. Full citation record

  1. 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.

  2. Spin-up and mass-gain in hyperbolic encounters of spinning black holes

    gr-qc 2025-10 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    Scattering black holes gain spin and mass by absorbing emitted gravitational radiation, with spin-up up to 0.3 and mass gain up to 15% in near-threshold encounters.

  3. Chase Orbits, not Time: A Scalable Paradigm for Long-Duration Eccentric Gravitational-Wave Surrogates

    gr-qc 2025-09 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Eccentric inspiral waveforms are modeled against mean anomaly rather than time, yielding an order-of-magnitude compression and a 2.77e6 M surrogate that is ~20x faster to evaluate.

  4. Early Warning From Eccentric Compact Binaries: Template Initialization And Sub-dominant Mode Effects

    gr-qc 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    For eccentric neutron star and black hole binaries, initializing early-warning templates at the periastron frequency, and including subdominant waveform modes, measurably improves sky localization and early warning time.

  5. Assembling GW231123 in star clusters through the combination of stellar binary evolution and hierarchical mergers

    astro-ph.GA 2025-09 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Metal-poor star clusters can form GW231123-like black hole mergers, but matching its high spins requires assuming high natal spins for stellar-binary black holes.

  6. The first decade of gravitational-wave measurements of black hole spins

    gr-qc 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 1.0 of 10

    A review summarizing formation-channel predictions, waveform effects, and population-level constraints on stellar-mass black hole spins from the first decade of gravitational-wave observations.

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