Bayesian analysis of LIGO-Virgo mergers: Primordial vs. astrophysical black hole populations

Hall, Alex; Gow, Andrew D.; Byrnes, Christian T.

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2008.13704

Cited by 10 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…However, the observed merger rate alone constrains the allowed O(30)M PBH DM abundance to be marginal [8,11,12] 1 . Dedicated simulations of PBH evolution in the early Universe [14,15], studies of the formation of small-scale structure [16][17][18][19] as well as several later analyses [20][21][22][23] have confirmed this result. Nevertheless, if the PBHs comprise just a fraction of DM, the primordial hypothesis for the LIGO-Virgo GW events is still physically interesting and motivates further studies of the PBH formation and evolution in the early Universe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Two populations of LIGO-Virgo black holes

Hütsi,

Raidal,

Vaskonen

et al. 2020

Preprint

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We analyse the LIGO-Virgo data, including the recently released GWTC-2 dataset, to test a hypothesis that the data contains more than one population of black holes. We perform a maximum likelihood analysis including a population of astrophysical black holes with a truncated power-law mass function whose merger rate follows from star formation rate, and a population of primordial black holes for which we consider log-normal and critical collapse mass functions. We find that primordial black holes alone are strongly disfavoured by the data, while the best fit is obtained for the template combining astrophysical and primordial merger rates. Alternatively, the data may hint towards two different astrophysical black hole populations. We also update the constraints on primordial black hole abundance from LIGO-Virgo observations finding that in the 2 − 400M mass range, they must comprise less than 0.2% of dark matter.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Two populations of LIGO-Virgo black holes

Hütsi,

Raidal,

Vaskonen

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Another intriguing possibility is the PBH scenario, which could explain not only the observed binary black hole (BBH) merger events, but also the fact that many observed BBHs have large mass and low spin [18]. Given the large theoretical uncertainties in predicting the merger rate distribution of the individual astrophysical channels, it is a challenging task to determine how much the PBHs contribute to the observed merger rate distribution from the data (see [40][41][42][43][44][45][46] as recent works along this direction). In order to achieve this, we would ultimately need to reduce the theoretical uncertainties of the astrophysical channels and subtract the astrophysical contributions from the observationally determined merger rate distribution to identify the PBH signal.…”

Section: Underlying Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstruction of Primordial Power Spectrum of curvature perturbation from the merger rate of Primordial Black Hole Binaries

Kimura,

Suyama,

Yamaguchi

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The properties of primordial curvature perturbations on small scales are still unknown while those on large scales have been well probed by the observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and the large scale structure. In this paper, we propose the reconstruction method of primordial curvature perturbations on small scales through the merger rate of binary primordial black holes, which could form from large primordial curvature perturbation on small scales.

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“…Note that to transition from searches for neutron stars spinning down to inspiraling PBHs spinning up, the only modification necessary is to allow k → −k in equation 19.…”

Section: B Generalized Frequency-hough Transformmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There exists a variety of PBH formation scenarios, e.g. the gravitational collapse of inhomogeneities that can be generated during inflation, reheating or phase transitions, that allow PBHs to compose a fraction [17][18][19][20] or all of dark matter in the Universe [15,16,[21][22][23][24][25][26]. In addition to being responsible for forming stellar-mass black holes, the collapse process may also have triggered Baryogenesis in the Universe in pockets surrounding each PBH, and linked the observed baryon-to-photon ratio to the abundance of PBHs at formation [27,28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing planetary-mass primordial black holes with continuous gravitational waves

Miller,

Clesse,

De Lillo

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Gravitational waves can probe the existence of planetary-mass primordial black holes. Considering a mass range of [10 −7 − 10 −2 ]M , inspiraling primordial black holes could emit either continuous gravitational waves, quasi-monochromatic signals that last for many years, or transient continuous waves, signals whose frequency evolution follows a power law and last for O(hours-months). We show that primordial black hole binaries in our galaxy may produce detectable gravitational waves for different mass functions and formation mechanisms. In order to detect these inspirals, we adapt methods originally designed to search for gravitational waves from asymmetrically rotating neutron stars. The first method, the Frequency-Hough, exploits the continuous, quasi-monochromatic nature of inspiraling black holes that are sufficiently light and far apart such that their orbital frequencies can be approximated as linear with a small spin-up. The second method, the Generalized Frequency-Hough, drops the assumption of linearity and allows the signal frequency to follow a power-law evolution. We explore the parameter space to which each method is sensitive, derive a theoretical sensitivity estimate, determine optimal search parameters and calculate the computational cost of all-sky and directed searches. We forecast limits on the abundance of primordial black holes within our galaxy, showing that we can constrain the fraction of dark matter that primordial black holes compose, fPBH, to be fPBH 1 for chirp masses between [4 × 10 −5 − 10 −3 ]M for current detectors. For the Einstein Telescope, we expect the constraints to improve to fPBH 10 −2 for chirp masses between [10 −4 − 10 −3 ]M .

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Bayesian analysis of LIGO-Virgo mergers: Primordial vs. astrophysical black hole populations

Cited by 10 publications

References 53 publications

Two populations of LIGO-Virgo black holes

Two populations of LIGO-Virgo black holes

Reconstruction of Primordial Power Spectrum of curvature perturbation from the merger rate of Primordial Black Hole Binaries

Probing planetary-mass primordial black holes with continuous gravitational waves

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