17–20 Jun 2024
National Galleries of Scotland
Europe/London timezone

The mass-distribution of LIGO’s events as a probe for dark matter

18 Jun 2024, 10:00
20m
National Galleries of Scotland

National Galleries of Scotland

The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL Scotland

Speaker

Ilias Cholis (Oakland University)

Description

Primordial black holes (PBHs) may contribute to the observed abundance of dark matter. We use the black-hole mass distribution obtained from the detected binary black hole merger events by the LIGO/VIRGO gravitational-wave observatories, with a signal to noise ratio (SNR) $>$ 8. We search for and place limits on PBHs in the stellar-mass range. We also simulate binary black holes following models of formation of two separate populations of merging binaries: stellar-origin binary black holes and PBH binaries. For those we calculate the signal to noise ratio that would result on the LIGO detectors. Selecting only simulated merger events with a SNR $>$ 8, we fit the combination of these two components to the LIGO/VIRGO data. In our work, we rely on a wide range of black-hole mass distributions expected from models of formation of stellar-origin black holes and of PBHs.

Primary authors

Ilias Cholis (Oakland University) Mr Mehdi El Bouhaddouti (Oakland University)

Presentation materials