Do gravitational waves confirm Hawking's area law?

TL;DR

This paper critically examines recent claims that gravitational wave observations confirm Hawking's area law, arguing that the data do not provide direct confirmation and that the law remains unconfirmed but falsifiable.

Contribution

The paper offers a philosophical analysis showing that the GW150914 data do not confirm Hawking's area law and clarifies what aspects of the experiment were actually tested.

Findings

GW150914 data do not confirm Hawking's area law

The tested hypothesis was about the relation between remnant and initial black hole areas

The area law remains falsifiable but unconfirmed by current observations

Abstract

Recently an experiment has been performed for the purpose of "testing the area law with GW150914". As the experimenters put it, the experiment presents "observational confirmation" of Hawking's area law based on the GW150914 data. It is the purpose of this paper to philosophically examine the test of the area law and to show that the area law is not confirmable yet is falsifiable. Accordingly, the GW150914 data do not confirm Hawking's area law. What has been tested with positive results was the hypothesis A3 > A1 + A2, where A3 = GW150914 remnant and A1 + A2 = GW150914 merger. But this single instance does not provide observational confirmation of Hawking's area law.