General-relativistic precession in a black-hole binary

Mark Hannam; Charlie Hoy; Jonathan E Thompson; Stephen Fairhurst; Vivien Raymond; Marta Colleoni; Derek Davis; Héctor Estellés; Carl-Johan Haster; Adrian Helmling-Cornell; Sascha Husa; David Keitel; T J Massinger; Alexis Menéndez-Vázquez; Kentaro Mogushi; Serguei Ossokine; Ethan Payne; Geraint Pratten; Isobel Romero-Shaw; Jam Sadiq; Patricia Schmidt; Rodrigo Tenorio; Richard Udall; John Veitch; Daniel Williams; Anjali Balasaheb Yelikar; Aaron Zimmerman

doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05212-z

General-relativistic precession in a black-hole binary

Nature. 2022 Oct;610(7933):652-655. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05212-z. Epub 2022 Oct 12.

Authors

Mark Hannam^#¹, Charlie Hoy^#², Jonathan E Thompson^#², 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-Shaw^{11

12

13}, Jam Sadiq¹⁴, Patricia Schmidt¹⁰, Rodrigo Tenorio³, Richard Udall⁴, John Veitch¹⁵, Daniel Williams¹⁵, Anjali Balasaheb Yelikar¹⁶, Aaron Zimmerman¹⁷

Affiliations

¹ Gravity Exploration Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK. hannammd@cardiff.ac.uk.
² Gravity Exploration Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
³ Departament de Física, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma, Spain.
⁴ LIGO Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁵ LIGO Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambirdge, MA, USA.
⁶ University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA.
⁷ Institut de Fìsica d'Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain.
⁸ Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO, USA.
⁹ Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Potsdam, Germany.
¹⁰ Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
¹¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
¹² OzGrav: The ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
¹³ Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge, UK.
¹⁴ Instituto Galego de Fisica de Altas Enerxias, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
¹⁵ SUPA, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
¹⁶ Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA.
¹⁷ University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 36224390
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05212-z

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 binaries^1,2. Imprints of precession have been investigated in several signals^3-5, but no definitive identification of orbital precession has been reported in any of the 84 BBH observations so far^5-7 by the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors^8,9. 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 pulsars^10-13. 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.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Abstract

Publication types

Grants and funding