The Binary Black Hole Spin Distribution Likely Broadens with Redshift

Biscoveanu, S.; Callister, T. A.; Haster, C.-J.; Ng, Ken K. Y.; Vitale, Salvatore; Farr, W. M.

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac71a8

Cited by 44 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…We find that current observations favor our model's prediction of our model that there is a positive correlation between χ eff and z. Such a conclusion is consistent with the results of Biscoveanu et al (2022), who found that the width of the χ eff distribution likely broadens with increasing redshift, event though they did not find compelling evidence in favor of a redshift evolving mean χ eff . Additionally, our model prediction at low redshifts of a large zero-spin BBH population with an additional subpopulation of systems with spin vectors preferentially aligned to the orbital angular momentum is in agreement with Roulet et al (2021) and Galaudage et al (2021) reanalysis of GWTC-2 events.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…More precisely, we constrain f χ eff >0.2 (z = 0.3) > 0.06 at 99% credibility and find that f χ eff >0.2 (z) increases with increasing redshift at 82% credibility. Our conclusions are consistent with the results of Biscoveanu et al (2022), who find that the width of the χ eff distribution likely broadens with increasing redshift, but do not find compelling evidence that the mean χ eff evolves with red-shift. 2 Our model for field BBH formation predicts that the mean of the χ eff distribution must increase with redshift.…”

Section: χ Eff − Z Correlation Of Field Bbhssupporting

confidence: 91%

“…1 and 2 show) some of the observed χ eff evolution in the LIGO-Virgo catalog will be due to an underlying correlation between χ eff and mass. These conclusions are corroborated by Biscoveanu et al (2022), who find that the preference for χ eff to correlate with redshift is stronger than a possible correlation with primary mass, although the two scenarios can be confused for one other.…”

Section: χ Eff − Z Correlation Of Field Bbhsmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…Our parameterization for the χ eff distribution is most similar to the modelBiscoveanu et al (2022) consider in their Section 4.3 with the "Prior 3" variation Biscoveanu et al (2022). analysis consider alternative models for the parameterization of the redshift evolving χ eff distribution other than the one assumed here, still reaching similar conclusions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 81%

“…A larger sample size would allow for detailed investigations of correlations between BBH observable properties (e.g., Maggiore et al 2020;Tiwari 2021), which might enable different astrophysical formation channels to be distinguished. For example, multiple studies have looked for potential correlations between masses and redshifts (Fishbach et al 2021;Abbott et al 2021d), M chirp − χ eff (Safarzadeh et al 2020;Abbott et al 2021d;Franciolini & Pani 2022), χ eff − q (Callister et al 2021b;Abbott et al 2021d), and χ eff − z (Biscoveanu et al 2022). The redshift at which the BBH systems merge, z, is a proxy for the distance to the source, M chirp = (m 1 m 2 ) 3/5 /(m 1 + m 2 ) 1/5 is the chirp mass where m 1 and m 2 are the BH component masses, q = m 2 /m 1 is the mass ratio defined with m 2 < m 1 , and χ eff = (m 1 a 1 + m 2 a 2 )/(m 1 + m 2 ) • L is the effective spin parameter where a 1 and a 2 are the component BH dimensionless spin vectors and L the orbital angular momentum unit vector.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The χ_eff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it

Bavera

Fishbach

Zevin

et al. 2022

A&A

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Understanding the origin of merging binary black holes is currently one of the most pressing quests in astrophysics. We show that if isolated binary evolution dominates the formation mechanism of merging binary black holes, one should expect a correlation between the effective spin parameter, χ eff , and the redshift of the merger, z, of binary black holes. This correlation comes from tidal spin-up systems preferentially forming and merging at higher redshifts due to the combination of weaker orbital expansion from low metallicity stars given their reduced wind mass loss rate, delayed expansion and have smaller maximal radii during the supergiant phase compared to stars at higher metallicity. As a result, these tightly bound systems merge with short inspiral times. Given our fiducial model of isolated binary evolution, we show that the origin of a χ eff − z correlation in the detectable LIGO-Virgo binary black hole population is different from the intrinsic population, which will become accessible only in the future by third-generation gravitational-wave detectors such as Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer. Given the limited horizon of current gravitational-wave detectors, z 1, highly rotating black hole mergers in the LIGO-Virgo observed χ eff − z correlation are dominated by those formed through chemically homogeneous evolution. This is in contrast to the subpopulation of highly rotating black holes in the intrinsic population, which is dominated by tidal spin up following a common evolve event. The different subchannel mixture in the intrinsic and detected population is a direct consequence of detector selection effects, which allows for the typically more massive black holes formed through chemically homogeneous evolution to be observable at larger redshifts and dominate the LIGO-Virgo sample of spinning binary black holes from isolated evolution at z > 0.4. Finally, we compare our model predictions with population predictions based on the current catalog of binary black hole mergers and find that current data favor a positive correlation of χ eff − z as predicted by our model of isolated binary evolution.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: χ Eff − Z Correlation Of Field Bbhssupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: χ Eff − Z Correlation Of Field Bbhsmentioning

confidence: 52%

mentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The χ_eff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it

Bavera

Fishbach

Zevin

et al. 2022

A&A

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The role of mass transfer and common envelope evolution in the formation of merging binary black holes

Marchant

Pappas

Gallegos-Garcia

et al. 2021

A&A

119

117

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As the number of merging binary black holes observed with ground-based gravitational-wave detectors grows, increasingly accurate theoretical models are required to compare them to the observed sample and disentangle contributions from multiple channels. In formation models involving isolated binary stars, important uncertainties remain regarding the stability of mass transfer and common-envelope evolution. To study some of these uncertainties, we have computed binary simulations using the MESA code consisting of a 30 M⊙ star in a low metallicity (Z⊙/10) environment with a black-hole companion. We have developed an updated prescription to compute mass transfer rates including the possibility of outflows from outer Lagrangian points, as well as a method to self-consistently determine the core-envelope boundary in cases where there is common-envelope evolution. We find that binaries survive common-envelope evolution only if unstable mass transfer happens after the formation of a deep convective envelope, resulting in a narrow range (0.2 dex) in period for successful envelope ejection. All cases where binary interaction is initiated with a radiative envelope have large binding energies (∼1050 erg), and they result in mergers during the common-envelope phase even under the assumption that all the internal and recombination energy of the envelope, as well as the energy from an inspiral, is used to eject the envelope. This is independent of whether or not helium is ignited in the core of the donor, conditions under which various rapid-population synthesis calculations assume a successful envelope ejection is possible. Moreover, we find that the critical mass ratio for instability is such that across a large range in initial orbital periods (∼1−1000 days), merging binary black holes can be formed via stable mass transfer. A large fraction of these systems undergo overflow of their L2 equipotential, in which case we find that stable mass transfer produces merging binary black holes even under extreme assumptions of mass and angular momentum outflows. Our conclusions are limited to the study of one donor mass at a single metallicity, but they suggest that population synthesis calculations overestimate the formation rate of merging binary black holes produced by common-envelope evolution and that stable mass transfer could dominate the formation rate from isolated binaries. This is in agreement with a few other recent studies. Further work is required to extend these results to different masses and metallicities as well as to understand how they can be incorporated into rapid population synthesis calculations.

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Spin it as you like: The (lack of a) measurement of the spin tilt distribution with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binary black holes

Vitale

Biscoveanu

Talbot

2022

A&A

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Context. The growing set of gravitational-wave sources is being used to measure the properties of the underlying astrophysical populations of compact objects, black holes, and neutron stars. Most of the detected systems are black hole binaries. While much has been learned about black holes by analyzing the latest LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) catalog, GWTC-3, a measurement of the astrophysical distribution of the black hole spin orientations remains elusive. This is usually probed by measuring the cosine of the tilt angle (cosτ) between each black hole spin and the orbital angular momentum, with cosτ = +1 being perfect alignment. Aims. The LVK Collaboration has modeled the cosτ distribution as a mixture of an isotropic component and a Gaussian component with mean fixed at +1 and width measured from the data. We want to verify if the data require the existence of such a peak at cosτ = +1. Methods. We used various alternative models for the astrophysical tilt distribution and measured their parameters using the LVK GWTC-3 catalog. Results. We find that (a) augmenting the LVK model, such that the mean μ of the Gaussian is not fixed at +1, returns results that strongly depend on priors. If we allow μ > +1, then the resulting astrophysical cosτ distribution peaks at +1 and looks linear, rather than Gaussian. If we constrain −1 ≤ μ ≤ +1, the Gaussian component peaks at μ = 0.48−0.99+0.46 (median and 90% symmetric credible interval). Two other two-component mixture models yield cosτ distributions that either have a broad peak centered at 0.19−0.18+0.22 or a plateau that spans the range [ − 0.5, +1], without a clear peak at +1. (b) All of the models we considered agree as to there being no excess of black hole tilts at around −1. (c) While yielding quite different posteriors, the models considered in this work have Bayesian evidences that are the same within error bars. Conclusions. We conclude that the current dataset is not sufficiently informative to draw any model-independent conclusions on the astrophysical distribution of spin tilts, except that there is no excess of spins with negatively aligned tilts.

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The Binary Black Hole Spin Distribution Likely Broadens with Redshift

Cited by 44 publications

References 87 publications

The χ_eff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it

The χ_eff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it

The role of mass transfer and common envelope evolution in the formation of merging binary black holes

Spin it as you like: The (lack of a) measurement of the spin tilt distribution with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binary black holes

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The Binary Black Hole Spin Distribution Likely Broadens with Redshift

Cited by 44 publications

References 87 publications

The χeff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it

The χeff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it

The role of mass transfer and common envelope evolution in the formation of merging binary black holes

Spin it as you like: The (lack of a) measurement of the spin tilt distribution with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binary black holes

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

The χ_eff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it

The χ_eff − z correlation of field binary black hole mergers and how 3G gravitational-wave detectors can constrain it