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GWTC-4.0: Population Properties of Merging Compact Binaries
A. G. Abac et al 2026 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 1005 .
Caption: Figure 16.
Differential merger rate as a function of primary mass (evaluated at z = 0.2) of the two different modes recovered by the BROKEN POWER LAW + 2 PEAKS model. The orange shaded region shows the 90% credible interval for the dominant mode (65% of posterior), reflecting a distinct peak at 35 M⊙, and the purple shaded region shows the 90% credible interval for the subdominant mode (35% of posterior), reflecting a broken power-law morphology without a distinct 35 M⊙ peak. The black dashed lines show the 90% credible bounds of the BROKEN POWER LAW + 1 PEAK model for comparison. The inset figure shows the joint posterior of the peak mean μ2 and width σ2 for each mode. The vertical gray shaded region indicates the 90% credible interval of the sum μ2 + σ2, which is consistent between both modes.
© 2026. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.