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1. Ancestral Black Holes of Binary Merger GW190521

   https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac5f47  

   Barrera, O.; Bartos, I. (April 2022, The Astrophysical Journal Letters)

   Abstract GW190521 was the most massive black hole merger discovered by LIGO/Virgo so far, with masses in tension with stellar evolution models. A possible explanation of such heavy black holes is that they themselves are the remnants of previous mergers of lighter black holes. Here we estimate the masses of the ancestral black holes of GW190521, assuming it is the end product of previous mergers. We find that the heaviest parental black holes has a mass of ${56}_{-18}^{+20}$M_⊙(90% credible level). We find 70% probability that it is in the 50M_⊙–120M_⊙mass gap, indicating that it may also be the end product of a previous merger. We therefore also compute the expected mass distributions of the “grandparent” black holes of GW190521, assuming they existed. Ancestral black hole masses could represent an additional puzzle piece in identifying the origin of LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA’s heaviest black holes. 

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2. Minding the Gap: GW190521 as a Straddling Binary

   https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/abc827  

   Fishbach, Maya; Holz, Daniel E. (December 2020, The Astrophysical Journal)

   null (Ed.)
3. Observing an intermediate-mass black hole GW190521 with minimal assumptions

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.103.082002  

   Szczepańczyk, Marek; Klimenko, Sergey; O’Brien, Brendan; Bartos, Imre; Gayathri, V.; Mitselmakher, Guenakh; Prodi, Giovanni; Vedovato, Gabriele; Lazzaro, Claudia; Milotti, Edoardo; et al (April 2021, Physical Review D)

   null (Ed.)
4. Mapping the likelihood of GW190521 with diverse mass and spin priors

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.083036  

   Olsen, Seth; Roulet, Javier; Chia, Horng Sheng; Dai, Liang; Venumadhav, Tejaswi; Zackay, Barak; Zaldarriaga, Matias (October 2021, Physical Review D)
5. GW190521: A binary black hole merger inside an active galactic nucleus?

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.123039  

   Morton, Sophia L.; Rinaldi, Stefano; Torres-Orjuela, Alejandro; Derdzinski, Andrea; Vaccaro, M. Paola; Del Pozzo, Walter (December 2023, Physical Review D)

   GW190521, the most massive binary black hole merger confidently detected by the LIGO-Virgo- KAGRA Collaboration, is the first gravitational-wave observation of an intermediate-mass black hole. The signal was followed approximately 34 days later by flare ZTF19abanrhr, detected in AGN J124942.3 þ 344929 by the Zwicky Transient Facility at the 78% spatial contour for GW190521’s sky localization. Using the GWTC-2.1 data release, we find that the association between GW190521 and flare ZTF19abanrhr as its electromagnetic counterpart is preferred over a random coincidence of the two transients with a log Bayes’ factor of 8.6, corresponding to an odds ratio of ∼5400∶1 for equal prior odds and ∼400∶1 assuming an astrophysical prior odds of 1=13. Given the association, the multimessenger signal allows for an estimation of the Hubble constant, finding H0 ¼ 102þ27 −25 km s−1 Mpc−1 when solely analyzing GW190521 and 79.2þ17.6 −9.6 km s−1 Mpc−1 assuming prior information from the binary neutron star merger GW170817, both consistent with the existing literature. 

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