| Literature DB >> 36224390 |
Mark Hannam1, Charlie Hoy2, Jonathan E Thompson2, Stephen Fairhurst2, Vivien Raymond2, Marta Colleoni3, Derek Davis4, Héctor Estellés3, Carl-Johan Haster5, Adrian Helmling-Cornell6, Sascha Husa3, David Keitel3, T J Massinger5, Alexis Menéndez-Vázquez7, Kentaro Mogushi8, Serguei Ossokine9, Ethan Payne4, Geraint Pratten10, Isobel Romero-Shaw11,12,13, Jam Sadiq14, Patricia Schmidt10, Rodrigo Tenorio3, Richard Udall4, John Veitch15, Daniel Williams15, Anjali Balasaheb Yelikar16, Aaron Zimmerman17.
Abstract
The general-relativistic phenomenon of spin-induced orbital precession has not yet been observed in strong-field gravity. Gravitational-wave observations of binary black holes (BBHs) are prime candidates, as we expect the astrophysical binary population to contain precessing binaries1,2. Imprints of precession have been investigated in several signals3-5, but no definitive identification of orbital precession has been reported in any of the 84 BBH observations so far5-7 by the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors8,9. Here we report the measurement of strong-field precession in the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra gravitational-wave signal GW200129. The binary's orbit precesses at a rate ten orders of magnitude faster than previous weak-field measurements from binary pulsars10-13. We also find that the primary black hole is probably highly spinning. According to current binary population estimates, a GW200129-like signal is extremely unlikely, and therefore presents a direct challenge to many current binary-formation models.Entities:
Year: 2022 PMID: 36224390 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05212-z
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Nature ISSN: 0028-0836 Impact factor: 69.504