The growing sample of LIGO–Virgo black holes (BHs) opens new perspectives for the study of massive binary evolution. Here, we study the impact of mass accretion efficiency and common envelope on the properties of binary BH (BBH) mergers, by means of population synthesis simulations. We model mass accretion efficiency with the parameter fMT ∈ [0.05, 1], which represents the fraction of mass lost from the donor which is effectively accreted by the companion. Lower values of fMT result in lower BBH merger rate densities and produce mass spectra skewed towards lower BH masses. Our hierarchical Bayesian analysis, applied to BBH mergers in the first and second gravitational-wave transient catalogue, yields zero support for values of fMT ≲ 0.6, with a lower boundary of the 99 per cent credible intervals equal to fMT = 0.59. This result holds for all the values of the common-envelope efficiency parameter we considered in this study αCE ∈ [1, 10]. This confirms that gravitational-wave data can be used to put constraints on several uncertain binary evolution processes.

中文翻译：

---

用 LIGO-Virgo 黑洞限制大质量双星的吸积效率

越来越多的 LIGO-Virgo 黑洞 (BH) 样本为大规模二元演化的研究开辟了新的视角。在这里，我们通过种群合成模拟研究了质量吸积效率和共同包络对二元 BH (BBH) 合并特性的影响。我们使用参数 fMT ∈ [0.05, 1] 对质量吸积效率进行建模，该参数表示从供体损失的质量中被伴星有效吸积的部分。较低的 fMT 值导致较低的 BBH 合并率密度并产生偏向较低 BH 质量的质谱。我们的分层贝叶斯分析应用于第一个和第二个引力波瞬态目录中的 BBH 合并，对 fMT ≲ 0.6 的值的支持为零，99% 可信区间的下限等于 fMT = 0.59。该结果适用于我们在本研究中考虑的所有共同包络效率参数值αCE ∈ [1, 10]。这证实了引力波数据可以用来约束几个不确定的二元演化过程。