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GW190412: Observation of a binary-black-hole coalescence with asymmetric masses

R. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. D 102, 043015 – Published 24 August 2020
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Abstract

We report the observation of gravitational waves from a binary-black-hole coalescence during the first two weeks of LIGO’s and Virgo’s third observing run. The signal was recorded on April 12, 2019 at 05∶30∶44 UTC with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 19. The binary is different from observations during the first two observing runs most notably due to its asymmetric masses: a 30M black hole merged with a 8M black hole companion. The more massive black hole rotated with a dimensionless spin magnitude between 0.22 and 0.60 (90% probability). Asymmetric systems are predicted to emit gravitational waves with stronger contributions from higher multipoles, and indeed we find strong evidence for gravitational radiation beyond the leading quadrupolar order in the observed signal. A suite of tests performed on GW190412 indicates consistency with Einstein’s general theory of relativity. While the mass ratio of this system differs from all previous detections, we show that it is consistent with the population model of stellar binary black holes inferred from the first two observing runs.

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  • Received 28 April 2020
  • Accepted 30 June 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.043015

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

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A Lopsided Merger

Published 24 August 2020

The merger of two black holes with significantly different masses allows researchers to better characterize black hole parameters and to perform new tests of general relativity.

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Vol. 102, Iss. 4 — 15 August 2020

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