GW230529_181500: a potential primordial binary black hole merger in the mass gap

Abstract

During the fourth observing run of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detector network, the LIGO Livingston observatory detected a coalescing compact binary, GW230529_181500, with component masses of 2.5–4.5 M⊙ and 1.2–2.0 M⊙ at the 90% credible level. The gravitational-wave data alone is insufficient to determine whether the components are neutron stars or black holes. In this paper, we propose that GW230529_181500 originated from the merger of two primordial black holes (PBHs). We estimate a merger rate of 5.0+47.0-4.9 Gpc-3 yr-1 for compact binary coalescences with properties similar to GW230529_181500. Assuming the source is a PBH-PBH merger, GW230529_181500-like events lead to approximately 1.7+36.2-1.5 × 10-3 of the dark matter in the form of PBHs. The required abundance of PBHs to explain this event is consistent with existing upper limits derived from microlensing, cosmic microwave background observations and the null detection of gravitational-wave background by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA.