GW190521: Tracing imprints of spin-precession on the most massive black hole binary

GW190521 is a remarkable gravitational-wave signal on multiple fronts: its source is the most massive black hole binary identified to date and could have spins misaligned with its orbit, leading to spin-induced precession; an astrophysically consequential property linked to the binary’s origin. However, due to its large mass, GW190521 was only observed during its final 3–4 cycles, making precession constraints puzzling and giving rise to alternative interpretations, such as eccentricity. Motivated by these complications, we trace the observational imprints of precession on GW190521 by dissecting the data with a novel time domain technique, allowing us to explore the morphology and interplay of the few observed cycles. We find that precession inference hinges on a quiet portion of the pre-merger data that is suppressed relative to the merger ringdown. Neither premerger nor postmerger data alone are the sole driver of inference, but rather their combination; in the quasicircular scenario, precession emerges as a mechanism to accommodate the lack of a stronger premerger signal in light of the observed postmerger. In terms of source dynamics, the premerger suppression arises from a tilting of the binary with respect to the observer. Establishing such a consistent picture between the source dynamics and the observed data is crucial for characterizing the growing number of massive binary observations and bolstering the robustness of ensuing astrophysical claims.