Ringdown Analysis of GW250114 with Orthonormal Modes

TL;DR

This paper applies an orthonormalized quasinormal mode analysis to the GW250114 gravitational-wave event, improving the robustness of subdominant mode detection and confirming no significant deviation from Kerr black hole predictions.

Contribution

It introduces an orthonormal QNM framework to enhance the detection of subdominant modes in high-SNR gravitational-wave signals, addressing correlations in traditional analyses.

Findings

The first overtone of the $ ext{l=m=2}$ mode is more strongly supported with 99.9% significance.

No significant deviations from Kerr predictions are observed.

The orthonormal QNM framework improves robustness in mode identification.

Abstract

GW250114 is the loudest gravitational-wave event to date observed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration. Owing to its high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), previous analyses based on quasinormal mode (QNM) superpositions have suggested evidence of the fundamental and the first overtone of the $\ell=m=2$ mode in this event. However, QNMs are not orthogonal and the inclusion of multiple QNMs induces correlations among them, which can hinder the robust identification of subdominant QNMs. To address this challenge, we apply an analysis based on orthonormalized QNMs [arXiv:2507.12376] to GW250114. We find that, in the model including three $\ell=m=2$ QNMs up to the second overtone, the first overtone of the $\ell=m=2$ mode is more strongly supported than in previous nonorthogonal analyses, with the inferred significance increasing from $82.5\%$ to $99.9\%$. Furthermore, we estimate deviations from the Kerr prediction using the orthonormal QNM framework and find no significant deviation, consistent with previous analyses. These results demonstrate that the orthonormal QNM framework provides a more robust way to identify subdominant modes in high-SNR ringdown signals, highlighting its potential for future gravitational-wave observations.