Kavli Affiliate: Xian Chen
| First 5 Authors: Liang-Gui Zhu, Liang-Gui Zhu, , ,
| Summary:
The formation channels of the gravitational-wave (GW) sources detected by
LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK) remain poorly constrained. Active galactic nucleus (AGN)
has been proposed as one of the potential hosts, but the fraction of GW events
originating from AGNs has not been quantified. Here, we constrain the
AGN-origin fraction $f_rm agn$ by analyzing the spatial correlation between
GW source localizations ($O1!-!O4$a) and AGNs (SDSS DR16). We report
preliminary evidence of an excess of lower-luminosity ($10^44.5 lesssim
L_rm bol le 10^45~!mathrmerg~s^-1$) as well as lower-Eddington
ratio ($0.01 lesssim lambda_rm Edd le 0.05$) AGNs around the LVK events,
the explanation of which requires $f_rm agn = 0.39^+0.41_-0.32$ and
$0.29^+0.40_-0.25$ (90% confidence level) of the LVK events originating
from these respective AGN populations. Monte Carlo simulations confirm that
this correlation is unlikely to arise from random coincidence, further
supported by anomalous variation of the error of $f_rm agn$ with GW event
counts. These results support the theoretical speculation that some LVK events
come from lower-luminosity or lower-accretion-rate AGNs, offering critical
insights into the environmental dependencies of the formation of GW sources.
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