AGN flares as counterparts to LIGO/Virgo mergers: No confident causal connection in spatial correlation analysis

Understand

The primary formation channel for the stellar-mass Binary Black Holes which have been detected merging by the LIGO-Virgo- KAGRA (LVK) collaboration is yet to be discerned.

• One of the main reason is that the detection of an Electromagnetic counterpart to such Gravitational Wave (GW) events, which could signpost their formation site, has so far been elusive.
• Recently, 20 Active Galactic Nuclei flaring activities detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility have been investigated as potential counterparts of GW events by Graham et al.
• (2023).