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GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of 150M

R. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 101102 – Published 2 September 2020
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Abstract

On May 21, 2019 at 03:02:29 UTC Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo observed a short duration gravitational-wave signal, GW190521, with a three-detector network signal-to-noise ratio of 14.7, and an estimated false-alarm rate of 1 in 4900 yr using a search sensitive to generic transients. If GW190521 is from a quasicircular binary inspiral, then the detected signal is consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses of 8514+21M and 6618+17M (90% credible intervals). We infer that the primary black hole mass lies within the gap produced by (pulsational) pair-instability supernova processes, with only a 0.32% probability of being below 65M. We calculate the mass of the remnant to be 14216+28M, which can be considered an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH). The luminosity distance of the source is 5.32.6+2.4Gpc, corresponding to a redshift of 0.820.34+0.28. The inferred rate of mergers similar to GW190521 is 0.130.11+0.30Gpc3yr1.

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  • Received 30 May 2020
  • Revised 19 June 2020
  • Accepted 9 July 2020
  • Corrected 23 October 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.101102

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Corrections

23 October 2020

Correction: The name A. Williamson was missing from the author list of the original publication and has been inserted.

Viewpoint

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A Heavyweight Merger

Published 2 September 2020

The heaviest black hole merger detected to date provides evidence for a progenitor black hole in a theoretically forbidden gap and for a resulting black hole in the long-sought intermediate mass range.

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Vol. 125, Iss. 10 — 4 September 2020

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