Verification of the black hole area law with GW230814

We present an observational confirmation of Hawking’s black-hole area theorem using the newly released gravitational-wave data from the GWTC-4.0. We analyze the high signal-to-noise ratio binary black hole merger GW230814 and measure the (total) horizon area of the black holes before and after the merger. For preferred (and reasonable) choices of the post-truncation start time, the horizon area of the remnant black hole is found to be greater than the total horizon area of the two pre-merger black holes at a high possibility (at least). Importantly, our analysis accounts for sky-location uncertainty. These results provide a stringent observational confirmation of the black-hole area law, further bolstering the validity of classical general relativity in the dynamical, strong-field regime.