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The large number of gravitational wave (GW) detections have revealed theproperties of the merging black hole binary population, but how such systemsare formed is still heavily debated. Understanding the imprint of stellarphysics on the observable GW population will shed light on how we can use thegravitational wave data, along with other observations, to constrain the poorlyunderstood evolution of massive binaries. We perform a parameter study on theclassical isolated binary formation channel with the population synthesis codeSeBa to investigate how sensitive the properties of the coalescing binary blackhole population are on the uncertainties related to first phase of masstransfer and stellar winds. We vary five assumptions: 1 and 2) the masstransfer efficiency and the angular momentum loss during the first masstransfer phase, 3) the mass transfer stability criteria for giant donors withradiative envelopes, 4) the effective temperature at which an evolved stardevelops a deep convective envelope, and 5) the mass loss rates of stellarwinds. We find that current uncertainties related to first phase of masstransfer have a huge impact on the relative importance of different dominantchannels, while the observable demographics of GW sources are not significantlyaffected. Our varied parameters have a complex, interrelated effect on thepopulation properties of GW sources. Therefore, inference of massive binaryphysics from GW data alone remains extremely challenging, given the largeuncertainties in our current models.

Importance of stable mass transfer and stellar winds for the formation of gravitational wave sources