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Stepping stone toward detecting gravitational wave memory: A cumulative analysis with the full (ℓ=2,m=0) spherical harmonic using events from GWTC-4.0 and GWTC-5.0

Maria Rosselló-Sastre1,*, Sascha Husa2,1, Yumeng Xu1, Jorge Valencia1, Joan Llobera-Querol1, and Antoni Ramos-Buades1

  • *Contact author: maria.rossello@uib.es
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 084037 – Published 13 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/brrl-jsb2

Abstract

We perform Bayesian model selection to test for the presence of the (ℓ=2,m=0) spherical harmonic mode in gravitational wave events that have previously been identified as binary black hole mergers. As our signal model we use the quasicircular, nonprecessing IMRPhenomTHM_20 waveform model, which includes the oscillatory and displacement memory contributions. Including the oscillatory component of the (2, 0) mode increases the signal-to-noise ratio and evidence for this mode, compared to testing only for the presence of gravitational wave memory. Our analysis thus constitutes a natural stepping stone toward detecting gravitational wave memory. We perform our analysis for the binary black hole signals identified in the GWTC-4.0 catalog, and for selected GWTC-5.0 events. In our Bayesian model comparison we find a cumulative log10B=1.38±0.79 in favor of the presence of the (2, 0) mode for the GWTC-4.0 catalog. We also stack the signal-to-noise ratio of the full (2, 0) mode and of its individual contributions, obtaining results consistent with previous studies and reaching SNRmemory=0.89−0.11+0.29 after approximately 7.5 months of O4a observations. In addition, we study the precessing candidate GW241127_061008, and find no additional evidence for the (2, 0) mode when precession is included in IMRPhenomTPHM_20. Overall, our results provide an assessment of the observational support for the (2, 0) mode in current gravitational wave data and allow us to discuss prospects for its future detection. We find that decisive statistical evidence will likely require a larger catalog, with an optimistic estimated number of events of Nevents=166−55+82, based on the specific assumptions adopted in this work. We also expect that decisive evidence will require a more extensive waveform systematics study.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 084037– Published 13 October, 2026
  • Received 20 July 2026
  • Accepted 18 September 2026
Article part of CHORUS
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