Formation of the first three gravitational-wave observations through isolated binary evolution

Simon Stevenson (), Alejandro Vigna-Gómez, Ilya Mandel, Jim W. Barrett, Coenraad J. Neijssel, David Perkins and Selma E. de Mink
Additional contact information
Simon Stevenson: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
Alejandro Vigna-Gómez: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
Ilya Mandel: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
Jim W. Barrett: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
Coenraad J. Neijssel: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
David Perkins: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
Selma E. de Mink: Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract During its first four months of taking data, Advanced LIGO has detected gravitational waves from two binary black hole mergers, GW150914 and GW151226, along with the statistically less significant binary black hole merger candidate LVT151012. Here we use the rapid binary population synthesis code COMPAS to show that all three events can be explained by a single evolutionary channel—classical isolated binary evolution via mass transfer including a common envelope phase. We show all three events could have formed in low-metallicity environments (Z=0.001) from progenitor binaries with typical total masses ≳160M⊙, ≳60M⊙ and ≳90M⊙, for GW150914, GW151226 and LVT151012, respectively.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14906 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14906

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14906

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().