Astro Chris-Nature Paper

In a paper appearing in Nature, my collaborators and I present a state-of-the-art synthetic universe (StarTrack) calculation, carefully accounting for the intrinsically rare but critical low-metallicity star-forming environments which produce binary black holes. This calculation shows how GW150914 could have formed from isolated stellar evolution. It introduces a framework with which to predict and interpret subsequent binary black hole gravitational wave events.

For context, this approach explains and produces all of the gravitational wave events and candidates seen to date, including the recently-announced GW151226. This model is being widely and rapidly adopted to prototype the future of gravitational wave astronomy. [For nonexperts, a short National Geographic article does a good job summarizing the current discussion among astrophysicists.]

For more information, see the links below, and prior posts

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• Belczynski, Holz, Bulik, and O’Shaughnessy, Nature 2016

• Our history of predictions Dominik et al 2015, recently updated in Belczynski et al 2015