TY - JOUR
T1 - An Alternative Interpretation of GW190412 as a Binary Black Hole Merger with a Rapidly Spinning Secondary
AU - Mandel, Ilya
AU - Fragos, Tassos
PY - 2020/6/1
Y1 - 2020/6/1
N2 - The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)-Virgo collaboration recently reported the properties of GW190412, a binary black hole merger with unequal component masses (mass ratio 0.25-0.04+0.06 when using the EOBNR PHM approximant) and a non-vanishing effective spin aligned with the orbital angular momentum. They used uninformative priors to infer that the more massive black hole had a dimensionless spin magnitude between 0.17 and 0.59 at 90% confidence. We argue that, within the context of isolated binary evolution, it is more natural to assume a priori that the first-born, more massive black hole has a negligible spin, while the spin of the less massive black hole is preferentially aligned with the orbital angular momentum if it is spun up by tides. Under this astrophysically motivated prior, we conclude that the lower mass black hole had a dimensionless spin component between 0.64 and 0.99 along the orbital angular momentum.
AB - The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)-Virgo collaboration recently reported the properties of GW190412, a binary black hole merger with unequal component masses (mass ratio 0.25-0.04+0.06 when using the EOBNR PHM approximant) and a non-vanishing effective spin aligned with the orbital angular momentum. They used uninformative priors to infer that the more massive black hole had a dimensionless spin magnitude between 0.17 and 0.59 at 90% confidence. We argue that, within the context of isolated binary evolution, it is more natural to assume a priori that the first-born, more massive black hole has a negligible spin, while the spin of the less massive black hole is preferentially aligned with the orbital angular momentum if it is spun up by tides. Under this astrophysically motivated prior, we conclude that the lower mass black hole had a dimensionless spin component between 0.64 and 0.99 along the orbital angular momentum.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086223721&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab8e41
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab8e41
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086223721
VL - 895
JO - The Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - The Astrophysical Journal Letters
SN - 2041-8205
IS - 2
M1 - L28
ER -