BH2 - Theoretical and observational studies of astrophysical black holes |
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Speaker |
Hannam, Mark |
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Coauthors |
Vaibhav Tiwari, Stephen Fairhurst |
| Talk Title |
Constraining black-hole spins with gravitational wave observations |
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Abstract |
The observation of gravitational-wave signals from merging black-hole binaries enables direct measurement of the properties of the black holes. An individual observation allows measurements of the black-hole masses, but only limited information about either the magnitude or orientation of the black-hole spins. Based on X-ray binary measurements it has frequently been suggested that black holes are formed with large spins. We find instead that LIGO-Virgo observations suggest low spins. With only six GW observations to date, the astrophysical distribution of spin magnitudes can be constrained by taking advantage of a range of selection effects and parameter degeneracies. |
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