Across the Universe: GW231123 as a magnified and diffracted black hole merger
Srashti Goyal, Hector Villarrubia-Rojo, Miguel Zumalacarregui
arXiv:2512.17631v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: GW231123 appears as the most massive binary black hole (BBH) ever observed by the LIGO interferometers with total mass $190-265 M_odot$. A high observed mass can be explained by the combination of cosmological redshift and gravitational magnification if the source is aligned with a gravitational lens, such as a galaxy. Small-scale objects such as stars and remnants diffract the signal, distorting the wavefront and providing additional lensing signatures. Here we present an analysis of GW231123 combining for the first time the effects of diffraction by a small-scale lens and gravitational magnification by an external potential, modelled as an embedded point-mass lens (PL), finding an intriguing case for the lensing hypothesis. Lensing is favoured by the data, with a false alarm probability of the observed Bayes factors bounded below $arXiv:2512.17631v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: GW231123 appears as the most massive binary black hole (BBH) ever observed by the LIGO interferometers with total mass $190-265 M_odot$. A high observed mass can be explained by the combination of cosmological redshift and gravitational magnification if the source is aligned with a gravitational lens, such as a galaxy. Small-scale objects such as stars and remnants diffract the signal, distorting the wavefront and providing additional lensing signatures. Here we present an analysis of GW231123 combining for the first time the effects of diffraction by a small-scale lens and gravitational magnification by an external potential, modelled as an embedded point-mass lens (PL), finding an intriguing case for the lensing hypothesis. Lensing is favoured by the data, with a false alarm probability of the observed Bayes factors bounded below $

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