Direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs) are an important component of the massive black hole population of the early universe, and their formation and early mergers will be prominent in the data stream of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). However, the population and binary properties of these early black holes are poorly understood, with masses, mass ratios, spins, and orbital eccentricities strongly dependent on the details of their formation, and the properties of the remaining exterior material (baryonic and non-baryonic), which may be substantial to the point of merger. We report on initial work to simulate the formation, collapse, and/or merger of such DCBH regions in order to extract the resulting gravitational-wave signals.
@article{arxiv.2512.09197,
title = {Gravitational-Wave Signatures of Massive Black Hole Formation},
author = {Bernard J. Kelly and Sarah Gossan and Leonardo R. Werneck and John Wise and Zachariah B. Etienne and Thiago Assumpção and Aláine Lee and John G. Baker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.09197},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
19 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in special issue of Classical and Quantum Gravity: "Focus on the LISA Mission at the time of Adoption"