Searching for where very unequal mass black hole binaries come from
The direct detection of gravitational waves from at least eleven sources during the past five years has offered spectacular confirmation of Einstein's model of gravity and space-time, while the modeling of these events has provided information on star formation, gamma-ray bursts,neutron stars, the age of the universe, and even verification of ideas about how very heavy elements are produced. The majority of these gravitational wave events arose from the merger of two black holes of comparable masses in an orbiting pair. Near-equal mass pairs are strongly preferred in models of binary black hole formation, whether they result from the evolution of isolated binary stars or from the dynamical pairing of two black holes. This year, however, the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories reported the first detection of a very unequal mass pair of black holes, GW190412, whose estimated masses are about 30 and eight solar masses. The question, then,...