TAPIR Seminar

Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from Gravitational-Wave Detections

Maya Fishbach, Graduate Student, Dept of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago,

The first two observing runs of advanced LIGO and Virgo have resulted in ten binary black hole (BBH) detections, allowing us to probe various properties of the underlying BBH population. In this talk, I will discuss what we have learned so far about the mass, spin, and redshift distributions of BBHs. The features in these distributions, including evidence for a maximum black hole mass at ~ 45 solar masses and a preference for merger rates that increase with redshift, are starting to inform our knowledge of BBH formation and evolution. With tens to hundreds of additional detections in the next few years, constraints on the mass spectrum, spin distribution, and the merger rate as a function of redshift will further discriminate between different models of BBH formation.

Event Sponsors:

Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity and Cosmology (TAPIR) - More events from this Sponsor

For more information, please contact JoAnn Boyd by phone at 4280 or by email at [email protected].