BBH merger populations using cosmic star formation histories of cosmological simulations
Abstract
This code is used for the paper: From cosmological simulations to binary black hole mergers: The impact of using analytical star formation history models on gravitational-wave source populations Published in ApJ (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae9c2f) and also available on arXiv 2601.20202 Model the binary black hole (BBH) merger population by obtaining the metallicity-dependent cosmic star formation rate density SFRD(Z, z) from an IllustrisTNG cosmological simulation. The "cosmic integration" step is done using the COMPAS cosmic integration post-processing tool. The SFRD(Z, z) can be modeled using a 2D array (obtained from a TNG simulation) or an analytical fit to this 2D array following the methods described in Neijssel et al. 2019 and van Son et al. 2023. Required inputs: COMPAS output file, download here GWTC-4 BBH B-spline model file (BBHMassSpinRedshift_BSplineIID.h5), download here To obtain the SFRD(Z, z) from a TNG simulation: Run get_TNGdata_withmetals.py Returns SFRMetallicityFromGasWithMetalsTNG[version].hdf5 To fit the analytical model to a TNG simulation SFRD(Z, z): Run Fit_model_TNG_SFRD.py Returns test_best_fit_parameters_TNG[version].txt To model BBH merger population using TNG simulation or analytical fit SFRD(Z, z) See cosmic_int_guide.txt inside the CosmicIntegration directory for additional detail Run CosmicIntegration/FastCosmicIntegration-withdata.py or CosmicIntegration/FastCosmicIntegration.py If using slurm: Set up init_values.py TNG simulation SFRD(Z, z) (as a 2D array): CallCosmicIntegration_data.py Fitted SFRD(Z, z): CallCosmicIntegration_full.py OR CallCosmicIntegration_data.py without specifying a file containing the SFRD (remove " --datafname " + data_file_name) Returns Rate_info_TNG[version].h5 To reproduce the figures: Fig 1-2, 11: compare_SFRDparams.py compare_SFR (Fig 1), compare_Zdist (Fig 2) Zdist_3panel_plots (Fig 11) Fig 3, 10: SFRD_2Dplots.py SFRD_2Dplot_sidepanels with plotregions=False (Fig 3) and plotregions=True (Fig 10) Fig 4-9, 12: TNG_BBHpop_properties.py compare_BBH_data_and_model_rates (Fig 4) plot_BBH_mass_dist_formation_channels (Fig 5) compare_BBH_data_and_model_mass_dist_over_z with plotdiff=False (Fig 6) and plotdiff=True (Fig 12) residuals_BBH_data_and_model_mass_dist (Fig 7) plot_BBH_mass_Z_z with fractionalerror=False (Fig 8) and fractionalerror=True (Fig 9)
Fields of Study & Subjects
Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
Galaxies: Formation
Evolution
Phenomena
Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 27 January 2026