Cococubed.com Black Hole Mass Gap
Home Astronomy research   Software Infrastructure:      MESA      FLASH      STARLIB      MESA-Web      starkiller-astro      My instruments   White dwarf supernova:      Remnant metallicities      Colliding white dwarfs      Merging white dwarfs      Ignition conditions      Metallicity effects      Central density effects      Detonation density effects      Tracer particle burning      Subsonic burning fronts      Supersonic burning fronts      W7 profiles   Massive star supernova:      Rotating progenitors      3D evolution      26Al & 60Fe      44Ti, 60Co & 56Ni      Yields of radionuclides      Effects of 12C +12C      SN 1987A light curve      Constraints on Ni/Fe ratios      An r-process   Neutron Stars and Black Holes:      Black Hole Mass Gap      Compact object IMF   Stars:      Neutrino HR diagram      Pulsating white dwarfs      Pop III with JWST      Monte Carlo massive stars      Neutrinos from pre-SN      Pre-SN variations      Monte Carlo white dwarfs      SAGB stars      Classical novae      He shell convection      Presolar grains      He burn on neutron stars      BBFH at 40 years   Chemical Evolution:      Iron Pseudocarbynes      Radionuclides in the 2020s      Hypatia catalog      Zone models H to Zn      Mixing ejecta      γ-rays within 100 Mpc   Thermodynamics & Networks      Stellar EOS      12C(α,γ)16O Rate      Proton-rich NSE      Reaction networks      Bayesian reaction rates   Verification Problems:      Validating an astro code      Su-Olson      Cog8      Mader      RMTV      Sedov      Noh Software instruments Presentations Illustrations cococubed YouTube Bicycle adventures Public Outreach Education materials 2022 ASU Solar Systems Astronomy 2022 ASU Energy in Everyday Life AAS Journals AAS YouTube 2022 Earendel, A Highly Magnified Star 2022 TV Columbae, Micronova 2022 MESA in Don't Look Up 2022 MESA Marketplace 2022 MESA Summer School 2022 MESA Classroom 2021 Bill Paxton, Tinsley Prize Contact: F.X.Timmes my one page vitae, full vitae, research statement, and teaching statement.	Observing Intermediate-mass Black Holes and the Upper Stellar-mass gap with LIGO and Virgo (2022) In this article we probe the mass function of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) wherein we also include BHs in the upper mass gap ∼60 - 130 M$_{\odot}$. Employing the projected sensitivity of the upcoming LIGO and Virgo fourth observing (O4) run, we perform Bayesian analysis on quasi-circular non-precessing, spinning IMBH binaries (IMBHBs) with total masses 50 - 500 M$_\odot$, mass ratios 1.25, 4, and 10, and dimensionless spins up to 0.95, and estimate the precision with which the source-frame parameters can be measured. We find that, at 2$\sigma$, the mass of the heavier component of IMBHBs can be constrained with an uncertainty of ∼10 - 40% at a signal-to-noise ratio of 20. Focusing on the stellar-mass gap with new tabulations of the $^{12}$C($\alpha$,$\gamma$)$^{16}$O reaction rate and its uncertanties, we evolve massive helium core stars using MESA, to establish the lower and upper edge of the mass gap as ∼59$^{+34}_{-13}$ M$_{\odot}$ and ∼139$^{+30}_{-14}$ M$_{\odot}$ respectively, where the error bars give the mass range that follows from the ±3$\sigma$ uncertainty in the $^{12}$C($\alpha$,$\gamma$)$^{16}$O nuclear reaction rate. We find that high resolution of the tabulated reaction rate and fine temporal resolution are necessary to resolve the peak of the BH mass spectrum. We then study IMBHBs with components lying in the mass gap and show that the O4 run will be able to robustly identify most such systems. Finally, we re-analyse GW190521 with a state-of-the-art aligned-spin waveform model, finding that the primary mass lies in the mass gap with 90% credibility.