Formation of the first three gravitational-wave observations through isolated binary evolution.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28378739.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms14906 and PMC identifier 5382320.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
During its first four months of taking data, Advanced LIGO has detected gravitational waves from two binary black hole mergers, GW150914 and GW151226, along with the statistically less significant binary black hole merger candidate LVT151012. Here we use the rapid binary population synthesis code COMPAS to show that all three events can be explained by a single evolutionary channel-classical isolated binary evolution via mass transfer including a common envelope phase. We show all three events could have formed in low-metallicity environments (Z=0.001) from progenitor binaries with typical total masses ≳160M<sub>⊙</sub>, ≳60M<sub>⊙</sub> and ≳90M<sub>⊙</sub>, for GW150914, GW151226 and LVT151012, respectively.