at Brown University, and the University of Florida. As they indicate in their paper, the team took a fresh look at previous findings made in 2020, where they were part of the team that observed the most massive GW binary detected to date . This consisted of two black holes that were about 85 and 66 Solar masses, respectively. This resulted in the formation of a black hole remnant of 142 solar masses.
This constituted the first detection of an “intermediate-mass” black hole, but there were also hints that the binary might have had an eccentric orbit before merging. Eccentric orbits are a possible sign that black holes repeatedly consume each other in areas densely populated by them . These mergers are believed to be how SMBHs grow, which are located at the center of most massive galaxies.
Lousto and his colleagues performed hundreds of new full numerical simulations in local and national lab supercomputers to determine if the black hole binary had an eccentric orbit. The simulations took nearly a year to complete and showed that a high-eccentricity, precessing model best explained the merger. In short, their results indicated that as the black holes closed in on each other, their orbit became somewhat erratic and changing.
“This represents a major advancement in our understanding of how black holes merge,” said Campanelli. “Through our sophisticated supercomputer simulations and the wealth of new data provided by LIGO and Virgo’s rapidly advancing detectors, we are making new discoveries about the universe at astonishing rates.”
This artist’s concept illustrates a hierarchical scheme for merging black holes. Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/R. Hurt
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