AI 中文总结
本文对GWTC-5的241个双黑洞事件开展种群级测试，发现第二代黑洞视界面积分布峰值高于第一代，以高置信度验证了黑洞面积定律，同时印证了黑洞分类的稳健性。
AI 中文摘要
霍金面积定理指出，经典黑洞（BHs）的总事件视界面积永远不会减小。现有引力波测试仅分析单个强引力波事件（如GW150914、GW230814、GW250114），因此仅能在观测到的特定并合中验证该定律。本文开展首次种群级测试，利用GWTC-5双黑洞（BBHs）的最新分解结果：分为恒星坍缩起源的低自旋子种群，以及由前者层级并合形成的高自旋子种群。若高自旋黑洞是并合遗迹（即第二代黑洞），面积定律要求其视界面积在统计上超过低自旋双黑洞的总并前面积。对241个事件采用仅 inspiral 段的参数估计（与并合-铃宕建模无关），发现第二代黑洞视界面积分布的两个峰值均高于第一代黑洞，对应概率分别为0.9995（3.3σ）和0.983（2.1σ）。因此，面积定律在当前星表主导的准圆、中等自旋并合中统计成立，这反过来也印证了恒星坍缩黑洞与层级并合黑洞分类的稳健性。
英文摘要
Hawking's area theorem states that the total event-horizon area of classical black holes can never decrease. Gravitational-wave tests of this law have so far focused on individual loud mergers, thus probing only a sparse subset of binary parameter space. Here we perform the \emph{first} population-level test. We exploit the decomposition of the coalescing black holes in the latest gravitational-wave catalogue into a low-spin subpopulation of stellar-collapse origin and a high-spin subpopulation assembled through hierarchical mergers of the former. If the high-spin black holes are merger remnants, the area theorem requires their horizon areas to exceed the total pre-merger areas of the low-spin binaries. Using parameter estimation restricted to the inspiral of 241 events, so that no merger-ringdown information enters the inference, we find that both peaks of the horizon-area distribution of second-generation black holes lie above their first-generation counterparts. The displacement is significant at each peak ($2.1$--$3.7σ$), and when we tie the two subpopulations with a single common shift, an area decrease is excluded decisively ($\gtrsim5.0σ$). The second law of black-hole mechanics thus holds statistically across the quasicircular, moderately spinning mergers that dominate current catalogues, which in turn underpins the robustness of our classification of stellar-collapse and hierarchical-merger black holes.
Comments25 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, added non-parametric and common-growth analyses
