Black-hole ringdown with templates capturing spin precession: A reanalysis of GW190521
arXiv:2512.05193 · doi:10.1103/52cd-81m5
Abstract
The ringdown stage of a binary black-hole merger provides a clean probe of strong-field gravity, as it can be modeled with minimal assumptions. The quasi-normal-mode frequencies encode the mass and spin of the Kerr black hole remnant, while the mode excitation depends on the progenitor binary. In this paper, we implement a recently developed amplitude model that captures spin precession in a simulation-based inference pipeline that specifically targets ringdown signals. We present a reanalysis of GW190521-a short-duration, merger-dominated event with conflicting interpretations. Spin-aligned and precessing analyses at two ringdown start times show that precession induces modest but systematic shifts in inferred parameters and subdominant mode amplitudes, although such ringdown-only analyses provide no strong evidence for precession. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of physics-informed precessing ringdown modeling, paving the way for the identification of spin precession in gravitational-wave events using solely their ringdown stages, where waveform systematics are expected to be substantially less prominent.
17 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables
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