GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of 150  M_{⊙}

• Published in: Physical review letters 2020-09, Vol.125 (10), p.101102-101102, Article 101102
• Main Authors: Abbott, R, Abbott, T D, Abraham, S, Acernese, F, Ackley, K, Adams, C, Adhikari, R X, Adya, V B, Affeldt, C, Agathos, M, Agatsuma, K, Aggarwal, N, Aguiar, O D, Aich, A, Aiello, L, Ain, A, Ajith, P, Akcay, S, Allen, G, Allocca, A, Altin, P A, Amato, A, Anand, S, Ananyeva, A, Anderson, S B, Anderson, W G, Angelova, S V, Ansoldi, S, Antier, S, Appert, S, Arai, K, Araya, M C, Areeda, J S, Arène, M, Arnaud, N, Aronson, S M, Arun, K G, Asali, Y, Ascenzi, S, Ashton, G, Aston, S M, Astone, P, Aubin, F, Aufmuth, P, AultONeal, K, Austin, C, Avendano, V, Babak, S, Bacon, P, Badaracco, F, Bader, M K M, Bae, S, Baer, A M, Baird, J, Baldaccini, F, Ballardin, G, Ballmer, S W, Bals, A, Balsamo, A, Baltus, G, Banagiri, S, Bankar, D, Bankar, R S, Barayoga, J C, Barbieri, C, Barish, B C, Barker, D, Barkett, K, Barneo, P, Barone, F, Barr, B, Barsotti, L, Barsuglia, M, Barta, D, Bartlett, J, Bartos, I, Bassiri, R, Basti, A, Bawaj, M, Bayley, J C, Bazzan, M, Bécsy, B, Bejger, M, Belahcene, I, Bell, A S, Beniwal, D, Benjamin, M G, Bentley, J D, Bergamin, F, Berger, B K, Bergmann, G, Bernuzzi, S, Berry, C P L, Bersanetti, D, Bertolini, A, Betzwieser, J, Bhandare, R, Bhandari, A V, Bidler, J, Biggs, E
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Black holes; Experimental studies of gravity; False alarms; general relativity; Gravitational waves; Luminosity; Red shift; Signal to noise ratio
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.101102

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 85_{-14}^{+21}  M_{⊙} and 66_{-18}^{+17}  M_{⊙} (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 65  M_{⊙}. We calculate the mass of the remnant to be 142_{-16}^{+28}  M_{⊙}, which can be considered an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH). The luminosity distance of the source is 5.3_{-2.6}^{+2.4}  Gpc, corresponding to a redshift of 0.82_{-0.34}^{+0.28}. The inferred rate of mergers similar to GW190521 is 0.13_{-0.11}^{+0.30}  Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}.