Black hole - black hole total merger mass and the origin of LIGO/Virgo sources

Understand

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration has reported nearly 100 BH-BH mergers.

• The LVK provides estimates of rates, masses, effective spins, and redshifts for these mergers.
• Yet, the formation channel(s) of the mergers remains uncertain.
• One way to search for a formation site is to contrast properties of detected BH-BH mergers with different models of BH-BH merger formation.