Formation of the First Two Black Hole-Neutron Star Mergers (GW200115 and GW200105) from Isolated Binary Evolution

Understand

In this work we study the formation of the first two black hole-neutron star (BHNS) mergers detected in gravitational waves (GW200115 and GW200105) from massive stars in wide isolated binary systems - the isolated binary evolution channel.

• We use 560 BHNS binary population synthesis model realizations from Broekgaarden et al.
• (2021a) and show that the system properties (chirp mass, component masses and mass ratios) of both GW200115 and GW200105 match predictions from the isolated binary evolution channel.
• We also show that most model realizations can account for the local BHNS merger rate densities inferred by LIGO-Virgo.