The spin magnitude of stellar-mass binary black holes evolves with the mass: evidence from gravitational wave data

Abstract

The relation between the mass and spin of stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) has been proposed to be a smoking gun for the presence of multiple formation channels for compact objects. First-generation black holes (BHs) formed by isolated binary stellar progenitors are expected to have nearly aligned small spins, while nth-generation BBHs resulting from hierarchical mergers are expected to have misaligned and higher spins. Leveraging data from the third observing run O3 (GWTC-2.1 and GWTC-3), we employ hierarchical Bayesian methods to conduct a comprehensive study of possible correlations between the BBH masses and spins. We use parametric models that either superpose independent BBH populations or explicitly model a mass-spin correlation. We unveil strong evidence for a correlation between normalized spin magnitudes and masses of BBHs. The correlation can be explained as a transition from a BBH population with low spins at low masses and higher spins for higher masses. Although the spin magnitude distribution at high masses lacks robust constraints, we find strong evidence that a transition between two BBH populations with different spin distributions should happen at 40-50 $M_{\odot}$. In particular, we find that the population of BBHs above 40-50 $M_{\odot}$ should compose the $\sim 2 \%$ of the overall population, with a spin magnitude $\chi$ peaking around 0.7, consistently with the fraction of nth-generation BBHs formed by hierarchical mergers in the latest state-of-the-art BBH genesis simulations.