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arXiv · 2107.12109

A follow-up on intermediate-mass black hole candidates in the second LIGO-Virgo observing run with the Bayes Coherence Ratio

Avi Vajpeyi·Rory Smith·Eric Thrane·Gregory Ashton·Thomas Alford·Sierra Garza·Maximiliano Isi·Jonah Kanner·T. J. Massinger·Liting Xiao
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Abstract

The detection of an intermediate-mass black hole population ($10^2-10^6$ $M_{\odot}$) will provide clues to their formation environments (e.g., disks of active galactic nuclei, globular clusters) and illuminate a potential pathway to produce supermassive black holes. Ground-based gravitational-wave detectors are sensitive to mergers that can form intermediate-mass black holes weighing up to $\sim 450\ M_{\odot}$. However, ground-based detector data contain numerous incoherent short duration noise transients that can mimic the gravitational-wave signals from merging intermediate-mass black holes, limiting the sensitivity of searches. Here we follow-up on binary black hole merger candidates using a ranking statistic that measures the coherence or incoherence of triggers in multiple-detector data. We use this statistic to rank candidate events, initially identified by all-sky search pipelines, with lab-frame total masses $>55\ M_{\odot}$ using data from LIGO's second observing run. Our analysis does not yield evidence for new intermediate-mass black holes. However, we find support for eight stellar-mass binary black holes not reported in the first LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave transient catalog GWTC-1, seven of which have been previously reported by other catalogs.

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Avi Vajpeyi, Rory Smith, Eric Thrane, Gregory Ashton, Thomas Alford, Sierra Garza, Maximiliano Isi, Jonah Kanner, T. J. Massinger, Liting Xiao. 2023-03-03. A follow-up on intermediate-mass black hole candidates in the second LIGO-Virgo observing run with the Bayes Coherence Ratio. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras%2Fstac2332

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