A trend in the effective spin distribution of LIGO binary black holes with mass

Abstract

Binary black holes (BBHs) detected by gravitational wave (GW) observations could be broadly divided into two formation channels: those formed through field binary evolution and those assembled dynamically in dense stellar systems. Each of these formation channels, and their sub-channels, populate a distinct region in the effective spin-mass (${\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}-M$) plane. Depending on the branching ratio of different channels, an ensemble of BBHs could show a trend in this plane. Here we fit a mass-dependent distribution for ${\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}$ to the GWTC-1 BBHs from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We find a negative correlation between mass and the mean effective spin (${\bar{\chi }}_{\mathrm{eff}}$), and positive correlation with its dispersion (${\sigma }_{{\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}}$) at 75\% and 80\% confidence. This trend is robust against the choice of mass variable, but most pronounced when the mass variable is taken to be the chirp mass of the binary. The result is consistent with significant contributions from both dynamically assembled and field binaries in the GWTC-1 catalog. The upcoming LIGO O3a data release will critically test this interpretation.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJ main journal

References in corpus (60)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Cosmic Star Formation History
• Binary companions of evolved stars in APOGEE DR14: Search method and catalog of ~5,000 companions
• GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
• Mass-loss predictions for O and B stars as a function of metallicity
• Grids of stellar models with rotation - I. Models from 0.8 to 120 Msun at solar metallicity (Z = 0.014)
• Dynamo action by differential rotation in a stably stratified stellar interior
• Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
• A Comprehensive Study of Binary Compact Objects as Gravitational Wave Sources: Evolutionary Channels, Rates, and Physical Properties
• Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• The formation of massive black holes through collision runaway in dense young star clusters
• Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae
• Double Compact Objects I: The Significance Of The Common Envelope On Merger Rates
• A simple model of complete precessing black-hole-binary gravitational waveforms
• Extracting distribution parameters from multiple uncertain observations with selection biases
• Slowing the Spins of Stellar Cores
• The evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates of LIGO/Virgo binary black holes
• New binary black hole mergers in the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Illuminating Black Hole Binary Formation Channels with Spins in Advanced LIGO
• The Formation of Eccentric Compact Binary Inspirals and the Role of Gravitational Wave Emission in Binary-Single Stellar Encounters
• Black Holes: The Next Generation -- Repeated Mergers in Dense Star Clusters and their Gravitational-Wave Properties
• Are merging black holes born from stellar collapse or previous mergers?
• Most Black Holes are Born Very Slowly Rotating
• Distinguishing Spin-Aligned and Isotropic Black Hole Populations With Gravitational Waves
• Are LIGO's Black Holes Made From Smaller Black Holes?
• Post-Newtonian Dynamics in Dense Star Clusters: Formation, Masses, and Merger Rates of Highly-Eccentric Black Hole Binaries
• Post-Newtonian Dynamics in Dense Star Clusters: Highly-Eccentric, Highly-Spinning, and Repeated Binary Black Hole Mergers
• Does the Black Hole Merger Rate Evolve with Redshift?
• The origin of spin in binary black holes: Predicting the distributions of the main observables of Advanced LIGO
• Measuring the binary black hole mass spectrum with an astrophysically motivated parameterization
• Spin orientations of merging black holes formed from the evolution of stellar binaries
• A Highly Spinning and Aligned Binary Black Hole Merger in the Advanced LIGO First Observing Run
• Hierarchical analysis of gravitational-wave measurements of binary black hole spin-orbit misalignments
• Where are LIGO's Big Black Holes?
• A New Search Pipeline for Compact Binary Mergers: Results for Binary Black Holes in the First Observing Run of Advanced LIGO
• Use of gravitational waves to probe the formation channels of compact binaries
• The Origin of Black Hole Spin in Galactic Low-Mass X-ray Binaries
• On the Origin of Black Hole Spin in High-mass X-Ray Binaries
• A Triple Origin for the Heavy and Low-Spin Binary Black Holes Detected by LIGO/Virgo
• Constraints on Binary Black Hole Populations from LIGO-Virgo Detections
• Research Note: The Expected Spins of Gravitational Wave Sources With Isolated Field Binary Progenitors
• Gravitational-wave astrophysics with effective-spin measurements: asymmetries and selection biases
• Accuracy Requirements for Empirically-Measured Selection Functions
• Black Hole Coagulation: Modeling Hierarchical Mergers in Black Hole Populations
• Precessional dynamics of black hole triples: binary mergers with near-zero effective spin
• Dynamical Formation of Low-Mass Merging Black Hole Binaries like GW151226
• Impact of Bayesian prior on the characterization of binary black hole coalescences
• Inferences about supernova physics from gravitational-wave measurements: GW151226 spin misalignment as an indicator of strong black-hole natal kicks
• Supplement: The Rate of Binary Black Hole Mergers Inferred from Advanced LIGO Observations Surrounding GW150914
• Black Hole Formation in Fallback Supernova and the Spins of LIGO Sources
• Dissipative Evolution of Unequal Mass Binary-Single Interactions and its Relevance to Gravitational Wave Detections
• Formation and merging of Mass Gap Black Holes in Gravitational Wave Merger Events from Wide Hierarchical Quadruple Systems
• Tidal Disruptions of Stars by Binary Black Holes: Modifying the Spin Magnitudes and Directions of LIGO Sources in Dense Stellar Environments
• The Formation of Rapidly Rotating Black Holes in High Mass X-ray Binaries
• The Origin of Binary Black Holes Mergers
• The Impact of metallicity evolution of the universe on the maximum mass of LIGO binary black holes

Cited by in corpus (36)

• One Channel to Rule Them All? Constraining the Origins of Binary Black Holes using Multiple Formation Pathways
• Hierarchical mergers of stellar-mass black holes and their gravitational-wave signatures
• New binary black hole mergers in the LIGO--Virgo O3a data
• Spin Evolution of Stellar-mass Black Hole Binaries in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Low Effective Spin of Binary Black Holes and Implications for Individual Gravitational-Wave Events
• Building better spin models for merging binary black holes: Evidence for non-spinning and rapidly spinning nearly aligned sub-populations
• Probing multiple populations of compact binaries with third-generation gravitational-wave detectors
• High Eccentricities and High Masses Characterize Gravitational-wave Captures in Galactic Nuclei as Seen by Earth-based Detectors
• The binary black hole spin distribution likely broadens with redshift
• Binary Black Hole Mergers from LIGO/Virgo O1 and O2: Population Inference Combining Confident and Marginal Events
• Measuring the eccentricity of GW170817 and GW190425
• Do unequal-mass binary black hole systems have larger ${\chi }_{\text{eff}}$? Probing correlations with copulas in gravitational-wave astronomy
• Compact Binary Coalescences: Astrophysical Processes and Lessons Learned
• Searching for mass-spin correlations in the population of gravitational-wave events: the GWTC-3 case study
• Limits on hierarchical black hole mergers from the most negative ${\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}$ systems
• Spin it as you like: the (lack of a) measurement of the spin tilt distribution with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binary black holes
• Was GW190412 born from a hierarchical 3+1 quadruple configuration?
• Evidence for a correlation between binary black hole mass ratio and black-hole spins
• The ${\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}-z$ correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it
• Tidal Spin-up of Black Hole Progenitor Stars
• The hydrodynamic evolution of binary black holes embedded within the vertically stratified disks of active galactic nuclei
• Collapsar Black Holes are Likely Born Slowly Spinning
• Interplay of spin-precession and higher harmonics in the parameter estimation of binary black holes
• A possible mass distribution of primordial black holes implied by LIGO-Virgo
• PixelPop: High Resolution Nonparameteric Inference of Gravitational-Wave Populations in Multiple Dimensions
• Mapping the Likelihood of GW190521 with Diverse Mass and Spin Priors
• Endpoint of the up-down instability in precessing binary black holes
• Measuring the Hubble constant with coalescences of binary neutron star and neutron star-black hole: bright sirens \& dark sirens
• An upper limit on the spins of merging binary black holes formed through binary evolution
• Outliers in the LIGO Black Hole Mass Function from Coagulation in Dense Clusters
• Accretion induced black hole spin up revised by numerical GR MHD simulations
• Black Hole Gravitational Potential Enhanced Fallback Accretion onto the Nascent Lighter Compact Object: Tentative Evidence in the O3 Run Data of LIGO/Virgo
• Signatures of a subpopulation of hierarchical mergers in the GWTC-4 gravitational-wave dataset
• Probing Spin-Orbit Resonances with the Binary Black Hole Population
• Signatures of Hierarchical Mergers in Black Hole Spin and Mass distribution
• Can Big Black Holes Merge with the Smallest Black Holes?