Black Hole Mass Function of Coalescing Binary Black Hole Systems: Is There a Pulsational Pair Instability Mass Cutoff?

Understand

We analyze the LIGO/Virgo GWTC-2 catalog to study the primary mass distribution of the merging black holes.

• We perform hierarchical Bayesian analysis, and examine whether the mass distribution has a sharp cutoff for primary black hole masses below $65 M_\odot$, as predicted in pulsational pair instability supernova model.
• We construct two empirical mass functions.
• One is a piece-wise function with two power-law segments jointed by a sudden drop.