High-mass binary black hole mergers from detailed binary evolution models

[2607.27962] High-mass binary black hole mergers from detailed binary evolution models Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Astrophysics > High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena arXiv:2607.27962 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 30 Jul 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 25 Aug 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: High-mass binary black hole mergers from detailed binary evolution models Authors: Max M. Briel , Olcay Bıyıklı , Tassos Fragos , Anarya Ray , Zepei Xing , Monica Gallegos-Garcia , Abhishek Chattaraj , Jeff J. Andrews , Michael Zevin , Vicky Kalogera , Seth Gossage , Philipp M. Srivastava , Elizabeth Teng View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Gravitational-wave observations reveal a population of binary black hole (BBH) mergers with primary masses above ${\sim}40\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$, extending into and potentially beyond the pair-instability mass gap, with a possibly flat mass-ratio and broader \chi_\mathrm{eff} distribution. We investigate whether super-Eddington accretion during stable mass transfer in isolated binary evolution can produce BBH mergers consistent with these properties across primary BH mass, mass-ratio, and \chi_\mathrm{eff} distributions. Using POSYDON, we simulate BBH merger populations with primary BH masses above ${\sim}40\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$, under three BH accretion efficiencies: Eddington-limited, GRRMHD-informed, and fully conservative. We additionally vary the natal kick strength, including strong kicks at high BH masses. We find that super-Eddington accretion does not suppress BBH mergers in the high-mass regime. Fully-conservative accretion leads to an increase of BBH mergers in POSYDON with a strong kick-independent peak at $\chi_\mathrm{eff}=0.6$ and a sharp mass-ratio peak at $q\sim0.5$, whereas observations favor $\chi_\mathrm{eff}=0.0$ and a flatter mass-ratio distribution. The GRRMHD-informed and Eddington-limited accretion are compatible with the observed primary BH mass and mass ratio distribution, but require natal kicks to populate negative \chi_\mathrm{eff}. A joint analysis of the primary BH mass, mass ratio, and \chi_\mathrm{eff} distributions provides strong constraints on binary evolution physics, and disfavor fully-conservative BH accretion as the dominant formation mechanism for high-mass BBH mergers. The Eddington-limited and GRRMHD-informed prescriptions with modest kicks can explain part of the high-mass population, but an additional formation channel is still needed to account for the high fraction of negative \chi_\mathrm{eff} systems and high secondary BH spins. Comments: Submitted to ApJ. Comments welcome Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ; Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) Cite as: arXiv:2607.27962 [astro-ph.HE] (or arXiv:2607.27962v2 [astro-ph.HE] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.27962 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Max Briel [ view email ] [v1] Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:08:21 UTC (2,240 KB) [v2] Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:18 UTC (2,240 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Additional Features Audio Summary Current browse context: astro-ph.HE < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-07 Change to browse by: astro-ph astro-ph.SR References & Citations INSPIRE HEP SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. 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