Mass and spin properties of black-hole mergers reveal formation in triples

arXiv:2609.30378 · astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.SR, gr-qc · Submitted 2026-09-24 · Read on arXiv

astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.SR, gr-qc

Submitted: 2026-09-24

Updated: 2026-09-24

Terminology

• Metallicity — 10× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Core — 6× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Alignment — 4× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Population Synthesis — 4× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Fine-Tuning — 3× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes
• Accretion Efficiency — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Abundance — 1× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Adam — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Angular Momentum Transport — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Robustness — 1× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes

Sources

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• GWTC-5.0: Population Properties of Merging Compact Binaries
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• The impact of common envelope development criteria on the formation of LIGO/Virgo sources
• No peaks without valleys: The stable mass transfer channel for gravitational-wave sources in light of the neutron star-black hole mass gap
• Twin Peaks: Resolving Features in the Binary Black Hole Mass Function with COSMIC-METISSE
• A Stellar Role Reversal: Multiple Features in the Mass and Mass Ratio Distributions of Merging Binary Black Holes from Stable Mass Transfer
• On the effective spin-mass ratio relation of binary black hole mergers that evolved in isolation
• How Common Are Common Envelopes? Quantifying Their Role in Forming Gravitational-Wave Sources
• The Mass-Ratio Distribution of the Low-Mass Binary Black Hole Subpopulation: A Natural Outcome of Isolated Binary Evolution
• How Massive Single Stars End their Life
• Mind the gap: The location of the lower edge of the pair instability supernovae black hole mass gap
• Resolving The Peak Of The Black Hole Mass Spectrum
• Illuminating Black Hole Binary Formation Channels with Spins in Advanced LIGO
• Distinguishing Spin-Aligned and Isotropic Black Hole Populations With Gravitational Waves
• Using spin to understand the formation of LIGO's black holes
• Black Holes: The Next Generation -- Repeated Mergers in Dense Star Clusters and their Gravitational-Wave Properties
• Post-Newtonian Dynamics in Dense Star Clusters: Formation, Masses, and Merger Rates of Highly-Eccentric Black Hole Binaries
• Merging black holes in young star clusters

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