From cosmological simulations to binary black hole mergers: The impact of using analytical star formation history models on gravitational-wave source populations
The study compared binary black hole merger rates and mass distributions derived from IllustrisTNG cosmological simulations against those calculated using simple analytical star formation history models, S(Z, z). Findings show that these analytical models significantly overestimate merger rates at high redshift ($z ext{ extasciicircum}6$) and introduce artificial features in the black hole mass distribution. This highlights the need for more complex star formation history models when interpreting gravitational-wave data.