Could the high-mass black holes from gravitational-wave observations be explained by lensing?

Ritesh Harshe, R. Prasad, Parameswaran Ajith

The high-mass ($M\gtrsim 30M_{\odot }$) black holes (BHs) from the gravitational-wave (GW) observations of LIGO and Virgo came as a surprise to many astronomers. While the collapse…