Properties and astrophysical implications of the 150 Msun binary black hole merger GW190521
By The Ligo Scientific Collaboration, T. Abbott, T. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, Rana X. Adhikari, V. Adya, C. Affeldt and 1,242 more. 2020
206 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The gravitational-wave signal GW190521 is consistent with a binary black hole merger source at redshift 0.8 with unusually high component masses, $85^{+21}_{-14}\,M_{\odot}$ and $66^{+17}_{-18}\,M_{\odot}$, compared to previously reported events, and shows mild evidence for spin-induced orbital precession. The primary falls in the mass gap predicted by (pulsational) pair-instability supernova theory, in the approximate range $65 - 120\,M_{\odot}$. The probability that at least one of the black holes in GW190521 is in that range is 99.0%. The final mass of the merger $(142^{+28}_{-16}\,M_{\odot})$ classifies it as an intermediate-mass black hole. Under the assumption of a quasi-circular binary black hole coalescence, we detail the physical properties of GW190521's source binary and its post-merger remnant, including component masses and spin vectors. Three different waveform models, as well as direct comparison to numerical solutions of general relativity, yield consistent estimates of these properties. Tests of strong-field general relativity targeting the merger-ringdown stages of coalescence indicate consistency of the observed signal with theoretical predictions. We estimate the merger rate of similar systems to be $0.13^{+0.30}_{-0.11}\,{\rm Gpc}^{-3}\,\rm{yr}^{-1}$. We discuss the astrophysical implications of GW190521 for stellar collapse, and for the possible formation of black holes in the pair-instability mass gap through various channels: via (multiple) stellar coalescence, or via hierarchical merger of lower-mass black holes in star clusters or in active galactic nuclei. We find it to be unlikely that GW190521 is a strongly lensed signal of a lower-mass black hole binary merger. We also discuss more exotic possible sources for GW190521, including a highly eccentric black hole binary, or a primordial black hole binary.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f7cb9f6b72a5ab5e68a7f773ad99147c66ea25c6
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In Astronomy and Astrophysics
Citations in the corpus
- 4-OGC: Catalog of Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Mergers (2021, background): “This period has seen continued improvement in their astrophysical reach over their three completed observing runs (O1–O3; Abbott et al. 2020b), with the pace rapidly increasing from three merger observations in O1 to dozens in the first half of O3 (O3a; Abbott et al. 2019a, 2021a, 2021c; Venumadhav…”
- GW231123: A Binary Black Hole Merger with Total Mass 190–265 M⊙ (2025, unknown): “The ringdown-dominated signals of high-mass BBH mergers can be mimicked by waveforms from the collapse of cosmic strings (Abbott et al. 2020f; Au-rrekoetxea et al. 2024) and collisions of exotic compact objects (e.g. boson stars) (Calder´on Bustillo et al. 2021b; Siemonsen & East 2023; Evstafyeva…”
- GWTC-2.1: Deep extended catalog of compact binary coalescences observed by LIGO and Virgo during the first half of the third observing run (2021, unknown): “Since there is only one significant detection to date of a comparable BBH system, GW190521 [196,197], the calculation of p astro for these candidates is subject to significant potential systematic error.”