Single-event likelihood of star cluster properties with LIGO-Virgo-Kagra binary black hole observations

Abstract

The population of binary black hole mergers observed in gravitational waves, together with astrophysical simulations, can help us to understand the properties of the progenitors and the binary formation mechanisms in different astrophysical scenarios. Here we focus on dynamical formation in star clusters. We use the third gravitational-wave transient catalog (GWTC-3) and Rapster, a rapid code to simulate cluster dynamics, to show that it is possible to construct the single-event likelihood of star cluster properties from individual observations. We find that the measured primary mass in a binary black hole merger correlates with the measured star cluster mass, because the mass spectrum of the primary component increases with the mass of the cluster. This trend may be caused by two physical mechanisms: (i) the more efficient production of hierarchical mergers with primary mass above $\sim 40M_{\odot }$ for cluster masses of $\gtrsim 10^6{M}_{\odot }$, and (ii) the suppression of more massive first-generation binaries, which happens because ejected binaries do not merge within the lookback time for cluster masses of $\lesssim 10^5{M}_{\odot }$. The formalism presented here can be generalized to infer the population properties of binary progenitors in more realistic scenarios involving multiple formation channels.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures. Calculations are shown in the python notebooks: https://gitlab.com/ken_ng/single-cluster-inference

References in corpus (76)

• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
• Advanced LIGO
• GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence
• GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
• GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of $150M_{\odot }$
• Interferometer design of the KAGRA gravitational wave detector
• The first gravitational-wave source from the isolated evolution of two 40-100 Msun stars
• Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Compact Object Modeling with the StarTrack Population Synthesis Code
• Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae
• Double Compact Objects I: The Significance Of The Common Envelope On Merger Rates
• Star Clusters Across Cosmic Time
• Properties and astrophysical implications of the 150 Msun binary black hole merger GW190521
• Binary Black Hole Mergers from Globular Clusters: Masses, Merger Rates, and the Impact of Stellar Evolution
• Double Compact Objects III: Gravitational Wave Detection Rates
• Double Compact Objects II: Cosmological Merger Rates
• Extracting distribution parameters from multiple uncertain observations with selection biases
• Binary Black Hole Mergers from Globular Clusters: Implications for Advanced LIGO
• Merging black hole binaries in galactic nuclei: implications for advanced-LIGO detections
• The Effect of Pair-Instability Mass Loss on Black Hole Mergers
• Formation of the first three gravitational-wave observations through isolated binary evolution
• The evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates of LIGO/Virgo binary black holes
• MOCCA-SURVEY Database I: Coalescing Binary Black Holes Originating From Globular Clusters
• 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
• Radiation Backgrounds at Cosmic Dawn: X-Rays from Compact Binaries
• Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA and GEO
• Are merging black holes born from stellar collapse or previous mergers?
• One Channel to Rule Them All? Constraining the Origins of Binary Black Holes using Multiple Formation Pathways
• COSMIC Variance in Binary Population Synthesis
• Distinguishing Spin-Aligned and Isotropic Black Hole Populations With Gravitational Waves
• Merging black holes in young star clusters
• Does the Black Hole Merger Rate Evolve with Redshift?
• Hierarchical mergers of stellar-mass black holes and their gravitational-wave signatures
• 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
• Determining the population properties of spinning black holes
• Monte-Carlo Simulations of Globular Cluster Evolution - I. Method and Test Calculations
• Use of gravitational waves to probe the formation channels of compact binaries
• Constraining Formation Models of Binary Black Holes with Gravitational-Wave Observations
• Populating the upper black hole mass gap through stellar collisions in young star clusters
• Constraining the primordial black hole scenario with Bayesian inference and machine learning: the GWTC-2 gravitational wave catalog
• Using spin to understand the formation of LIGO's black holes
• Resonant-plane locking and spin alignment in stellar-mass black-hole binaries: a diagnostic of compact-binary formation
• The properties of merging black holes and neutron stars across cosmic time
• Redshift Evolution of the Black Hole Merger Rate from Globular Clusters
• Black hole genealogy: Identifying hierarchical mergers with gravitational waves
• Joint constraints on the field-cluster mixing fraction, common envelope efficiency, and globular cluster radii from a population of binary hole mergers via deep learning
• Measuring the star formation rate with gravitational waves from binary black holes
• Gravitational-wave astrophysics with effective-spin measurements: asymmetries and selection biases
• Modeling Dense Star Clusters in the Milky Way and Beyond with the Cluster Monte Carlo Code
• Distinguishing compact binary population synthesis models using gravitational-wave observations of coalescing binary black holes
• Gravitational-wave detection rates for compact binaries formed in isolation: LIGO/Virgo O3 and beyond
• Population synthesis of black hole binary mergers from star clusters
• Explaining LIGO's observations via isolated binary evolution with natal kicks
• Model-independent inference on compact-binary observations
• Black Hole Coagulation: Modeling Hierarchical Mergers in Black Hole Populations
• PRECESSION: Dynamics of spinning black-hole binaries with python
• Mining Gravitational-wave Catalogs To Understand Binary Stellar Evolution: A New Hierarchical Bayesian Framework
• Cover Your Basis: Comprehensive Data-Driven Characterization of the Binary Black Hole Population
• Merger rate of black hole binaries from globular clusters: theoretical error bars and comparison to gravitational wave data from GWTC-2
• Probing multiple populations of compact binaries with third-generation gravitational-wave detectors
• Constraining the fraction of binary black holes formed in isolation and young star clusters with gravitational-wave data
• The time delay distribution and formation metallicity of LIGO-Virgo's binary black holes
• Deep learning and Bayesian inference of gravitational-wave populations: Hierarchical black-hole mergers
• STROOPWAFEL: Simulating rare outcomes from astrophysical populations, with application to gravitational-wave sources
• Gravitational wave population inference with deep flow-based generative network
• Limits on hierarchical black hole mergers from the most negative ${\chi }_{\mathrm{eff}}$ systems
• Isolated and dynamical black hole mergers with \texttt{B-POP}: the role of star formation and dynamics, star cluster evolution, natal kicks, mass and spins, and hierarchical mergers
• Looking for the parents of LIGO's black holes
• Globular cluster formation histories, masses and radii inferred from gravitational waves
• dart_board: Binary Population Synthesis with Markov Chain Monte Carlo
• Backward Population Synthesis: Mapping the Evolutionary History of Gravitational-Wave Progenitors
• Targeted modeling of GW150914's binary black hole source with dart_board
• One to many: comparing single gravitational-wave events to astrophysical populations

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Exploring the evolution of gravitational-wave emitters with efficient emulation: Constraining the origins of binary black holes using normalising flows
• Gravitational wave inference of star cluster properties from intermediate-mass black hole mergers