A uniform stellar origin for binary black holes revealed by lensing

TL;DR

This paper proposes that many high-mass binary black hole mergers observed via gravitational waves are actually stellar black holes magnified by lensing, explaining the bimodal mass distribution and suggesting a common stellar origin across cosmic time.

Contribution

It introduces a lensing-based explanation for the observed bimodal mass distribution of binary black holes and links the uniform component mass ratio to a common stellar origin.

Findings

Bimodal distribution of BBH chirp masses consistent with lensed and unlensed populations.

Identification of a mass jump at 10 solar masses linked to redshift differences.

Nearly uniform component mass ratio indicating in-situ stellar formation.

Abstract

Although most gravitational wave events are claimed to be mergers of unusually massive, $25-65M_\odot$, black holes, it is now clear that 20\% of all reported events comprise modest mass black holes, $5-15M_\odot$, like the stellar black holes in the Milky Way. We show that such stellar mass black hole binaries (BBH) if magnified by lensing galaxies can be detected at high redshift, 1$< $z$ <$5, with chirp masses increased by $1+z$, accounting for the majority of apparently high mass BBH events. This simple lensing explanation is manifested by the evident bimodality of BBH chirp masses now visible, with 80\% of BBH events in a broad peak centered on $m_{chirp} \simeq 35M_\odot$, and 20\% of BBH events in a narrow, low mass peak at $m_{chirp} \simeq 8.5M_\odot$, matching well our prediction for lensed and unlensed events respectively. This lensing interpretation is reinforced by the "graveyard plot" when ranked by chirp mass, revealing a jump in chirp mass at $m_{chirp} \simeq 10M_\odot$ that we show is caused by the large redshift difference between unlensed events with $z<0.3$ and lensed events above $z>1$. Furthermore, nearly all BBH events are seen to share a component mass ratio of $m_1/m_2=1.45\pm0.03$, indicating a common stellar origin for BBH events across all chirp masses. This observed component mass uniformity implies most binary black holes seldom pair up by random capture, instead we may conclude that massive progenitor stars of BBH black holes typically formed in-situ, in a well defined way over the full span of cosmic time accessed through gravitational lensing.