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Abstract Despite the growing number of binary black hole coalescences confidently observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include the effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that have already been identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total source-frame massM> 70M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz emitted gravitational-wave frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place a conservative upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0 <e≤ 0.3 at 16.9 Gpc−3yr−1at the 90% confidence level.
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Eccentricity Estimation for Five Binary Black Hole Mergers with Higher-order Gravitational-wave Modes
Abstract The detection of orbital eccentricity for a binary black hole system via gravitational waves is a key signature to distinguish between the possible binary origins. The identification of eccentricity has been difficult so far due to the limited availability of eccentric gravitational waveforms over the full range of black hole masses and eccentricities. Here we evaluate the eccentricity of five black hole mergers detected by the LIGO and Virgo observatories using theTEOBResumS-DALI,TEOBResumS-GIOTTO, andTEOBResumSPmodels. This analysis studies eccentricities up to 0.6 at the reference frequency of 5 Hz and incorporates higher-order gravitational-wave modes critical to model emission from highly eccentric orbits. The binaries have been selected due to previous hints of eccentricity or due to their unusual mass and spin. While other studies found marginal evidence for eccentricity for some of these events, our analyses do not favor the incorporation of eccentricity compared to the quasi-circular case. While lacking the eccentric evidence of other analyses, we find our analyses marginally shifts the posterior in multiple parameters for several events when allowing eccentricity to be nonzero.
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- PAR ID:
- 10577228
- Publisher / Repository:
- Astrophysical Journal
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 972
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 65
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad5ff6
