Ain't No Mountain High Enough: Semi-Parametric Modeling of LIGO-Virgos Binary Black Hole Mass Distribution

Abstract

We introduce a semi-parametric model for the primary mass distribution of binary black holes (BBHs) observed with gravitational waves (GWs) that applies a cubic-spline perturbation to a power law. We apply this model to the 46 BBHs included in the second gravitational wave transient catalog (GWTC-2). The spline perturbation model recovers a consistent primary mass distribution with previous results, corroborating the existence of a peak at $35M_{\odot }$ ($>97\%$ credibility) found with the \textsc{Powerlaw+Peak} model. The peak could be the result pulsational pair-instability supernovae (PPISNe). The spline perturbation model finds potential signs of additional features in the primary mass distribution at lower masses similar to those previously reported by Tiwari and Fairhurst (2021). However, with fluctuations due to small number statistics, the simpler \textsc{Powerlaw+Peak} and \textsc{BrokenPowerlaw} models are both still perfectly consistent with observations. Our semi-parametric approach serves as a way to bridge the gap between parametric and non-parametric models to more accurately measure the BBH mass distribution. With larger catalogs we will be able to use this model to resolve possible additional features that could be used to perform cosmological measurements, and will build on our understanding of BBH formation, stellar evolution and nuclear astrophysics.

arXiv comment10+7 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (35)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
• GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• How Massive Single Stars End their Life
• GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 M${}_{\odot }$ Black Hole with a 2.6 M${}_{\odot }$ Compact Object
• The Nucleosynthetic Signature of Population III
• GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of $150M_{\odot }$
• Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• GW150914: The Advanced LIGO Detectors in the Era of First Discoveries
• GW190412: Observation of a Binary-Black-Hole Coalescence with Asymmetric Masses
• Properties and astrophysical implications of the 150 Msun binary black hole merger GW190521
• Bayesian inference for compact binary coalescences with BILBY: Validation and application to the first LIGO--Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalogue
• Extracting distribution parameters from multiple uncertain observations with selection biases
• Mind the gap: The location of the lower edge of the pair instability supernovae black hole mass gap
• Very massive stars, pair-instability supernovae and intermediate-mass black holes with the SEVN code
• 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?
• BayesLine: Bayesian Inference for Spectral Estimation of Gravitational Wave Detector Noise
• Constraints from gravitational wave detections of binary black hole mergers on the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ rate
• A Future Percent-Level Measurement of the Hubble Expansion at Redshift 0.8 With Advanced LIGO
• Monte-Carlo simulations of black hole mergers in AGN disks: Low ${\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}$ mergers and predictions for LIGO
• Parallelized Inference for Gravitational-Wave Astronomy
• Is GW190521 the merger of black holes from the first stellar generations?
• Model-independent inference on compact-binary observations
• Beyond the Standard Model Explanations of GW190521
• Statistical Gravitational Waveform Models: What to Simulate Next?
• Missing in Action: New Physics and the Black Hole Mass Gap
• VAMANA: Modeling Binary Black Hole Population with Minimal Assumptions
• physiCal: A physical approach to the marginalization of LIGO calibration uncertainties
• Constraining Unmodeled Physics with Compact Binary Mergers from GWTC-1
• GW190521 formation scenarios via relativistic accretion

Cited by in corpus (43)

• From inflation to black hole mergers and back again: Gravitational-wave data-driven constraints on inflationary scenarios with a first-principle model of primordial black holes across the QCD epoch
• The Science of the Einstein Telescope
• Cover Your Basis: Comprehensive Data-Driven Characterization of the Binary Black Hole Population
• No peaks without valleys: The stable mass transfer channel for gravitational-wave sources in light of the neutron star-black hole mass gap
• The binary black hole spin distribution likely broadens with redshift
• Exploring Features in the Binary Black Hole Population
• A Parameter-Free Tour of the Binary Black Hole Population
• Resolving the Stellar-Collapse and Hierarchical-Merger origins of the Coalescing Black Holes
• Gravitational wave sources in our Galactic backyard: Predictions for BHBH, BHNS and NSNS binaries detectable with LISA
• Non-parametric inference of the population of compact binaries from gravitational wave observations using binned Gaussian processes
• Deep learning and Bayesian inference of gravitational-wave populations: Hierarchical black-hole mergers
• Searching for mass-spin correlations in the population of gravitational-wave events: the GWTC-3 case study
• Flexible and Fast Estimation of Binary Merger Population Distributions with Adaptive KDE
• What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: Use and Abuse of Astrophysical Models in Gravitational-wave Population Analyses
• Spin it as you like: the (lack of a) measurement of the spin tilt distribution with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binary black holes
• Black hole - black hole total merger mass and the origin of LIGO/Virgo sources
• Gravitational wave populations and cosmology with neural posterior estimation
• Dropping Anchor: Understanding the Populations of Binary Black Holes with Random and Aligned Spin Orientations
• Is there an excess of black holes around $20M_{\odot }$? Optimising the complexity of population models with the use of reversible jump MCMC
• Model exploration in gravitational-wave astronomy with the maximum population likelihood
• The Missing Link Between Black Holes in High-Mass X-ray Binaries and Gravitational-Wave Sources: Observational Selection Effects
• Predictions of a simple parametric model of hierarchical black hole mergers
• Fortifying gravitational-wave tests of general relativity against astrophysical assumptions
• Binary vision: The merging black hole binary mass distribution via iterative density estimation
• PixelPop: High Resolution Nonparameteric Inference of Gravitational-Wave Populations in Multiple Dimensions
• Nonparametric analysis of correlations in the binary black hole population with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA data
• Divergence in mass ratio distributions between low-mass and high-mass coalescing binary black holes
• Gravitational wave source populations: Disentangling an AGN component
• An Isotropy Measurement with Gravitational Wave Observations
• Physical Models for the Astrophysical Population of Black Holes: Application to the Bump in the Mass Distribution of Gravitational Wave Sources
• Exploring field-evolution and dynamical-capture coalescing binary black holes in GWTC-3
• Revealing the ${\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}$-$q$ Correlation among Coalescing Binary Black Holes and Tentative Evidence for AGN-driven Hierarchical Mergers
• Compactness peaks: An astrophysical interpretation of the mass distribution of merging binary black holes
• What's in a binary black hole's mass parameter?
• A Mid-Thirties Crisis: Dissecting the Properties of Gravitational Wave Sources Near the 35 Solar Mass Peak
• Multi-spectral Sirens: Gravitational-wave Cosmology with (Multi-) Sub-populations of Binary Black Holes
• Reconstructing parametric gravitational-wave population fits from non-parametric results without refitting the data
• Evidence for Three Subpopulations of Merging Binary Black Holes at Different Primary Masses
• Probing Spin-Orbit Resonances with the Binary Black Hole Population
• Echoes from the dark: Galaxy catalog incompleteness in standard siren cosmology
• Mass function of stellar black holes as revealed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observations
• Probing the peak of star formation with the stochastic background of binary black hole mergers
• Which black hole formed first? Mass-ratio reversal in massive binary stars from gravitational-wave data