“Researchers Finally Explain the Origin of LIGO’s Mass-Gap Black Holes — Rapidly Spinning Stars Rewrite the Rules”
When LIGO and Virgo picked up a gravitational-wave signal in
late 2023, astronomers were stunned. The event — named GW231123 —
appeared to come from the collision of two gigantic black holes, each nearly 100
times the mass of the Sun.
The problem? According to the standard playbook of stellar evolution, stars
that big shouldn’t leave behind black holes at all. They’re expected to blow
themselves apart in a catastrophic pair-instability supernova, leaving no
remnant — a range scientists call the “mass gap.”
Now, new computer simulations have finally offered a
physics-based explanation, showing how these “forbidden” black holes may have
formed after all.
Why the GW231123 Black Holes Were Considered Impossible
In November 2023, detectors recorded gravitational waves
from two merging black holes weighing roughly 100 and 130 solar masses.
Both values fall squarely within the 70–140 solar-mass mass gap, where
theory says black holes cannot form from single-star collapse.
Because stars in this mass range should tear themselves
apart entirely, scientists assumed no black hole could survive — let alone two
that later collided.
That’s why GW231123 was labelled a cosmic rule-breaker.
Rapid Rotation Changes Everything
The mystery began to unravel when researchers from the Flatiron
Institute ran high-resolution simulations of extremely fast-spinning,
magnetized stars.
Their findings revealed a crucial twist:
Fast-rotating, magnetized stars don’t collapse like
normal giant stars.
- As a
massive star spins rapidly, it forms a swirling disk around its collapsing
core.
- Magnetic
forces redistribute the star’s material, pushing much of the gas outward
rather than letting it fall straight into the forming black hole.
- This
process allows the black hole to remain smaller than expected,
landing directly inside the “forbidden” mass gap.
The simulations naturally produced:
- One
heavier, slower-spinning black hole
- One
lighter but rapidly spinning black hole
— exactly the unusual combination inferred from the GW231123
detection.
#LIGO #BlackHoles #Astrophysics #SpaceNews #GW231123
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