April 04, 2024
2024 American Physical Society April Meeting, SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, United States
According to stellar formation and evolution models, black holes in the mass range of about 60-130 solar masses cannot form from stellar collapse. However, gravitational-wave detections, such as GW190521, display component black holes within this instability gap, challenging traditional models of stellar-origin black hole formation. Plausible scenarios, like hierarchical mergers in dense environments such as stellar clusters and active galactic nuclei, emerge to explain the presence of these high-mass black holes. Such scenarios, however, require the remnant black hole (later observed by our detectors) to inherit a gravitational recoil smaller than the escape velocity of the host environment.