Ain't No Mountain High Enough: Semi-Parametric Modeling of LIGO-Virgos Binary Black Hole Mass Distribution

Understand

We introduce a semi-parametric model for the primary mass distribution of binary black holes (BBHs) observed with gravitational waves (GWs) that applies a cubic-spline perturbation to a power law.

• We apply this model to the 46 BBHs included in the second gravitational wave transient catalog (GWTC-2).
• The spline perturbation model recovers a consistent primary mass distribution with previous results, corroborating the existence of a peak at $35\,M_\odot$ ($>97\%$ credibility) found with the \textsc{Powerlaw+Peak} model.
• The peak could be the result pulsational pair-instability supernovae (PPISNe).