Related papers: Can binary mergers produce maximally spinning blac…
We present an investigation into how sensitive the last orbits and merger of binary black hole systems are to the presence of spurious radiation in the initial data. Our numerical experiments consist of a binary black hole system starting…
Recent detailed observations of the radio-loud quasar 3C 186 indicate the possibility that a supermassive recoiling black hole is moving away from the host galaxy at a speed of nearly 2100km/s. If this is the case, we can model the mass…
Recent work paints a conflicting portrait of the distribution of black hole spins in merging binaries measured with gravitational waves. Some analyses find that a significant fraction of merging binaries contain at least one black hole with…
Recent gravitational wave observations include possible detections of black hole - neutron star binary mergers. As with binary black hole mergers, numerical simulations help characterize the sources. For binary systems with neutron star…
The ground-based measurement of gravitational waves (GW) from merging binary black holes (BBH) uniquely allows determination of spins of stellar-remnant black holes (BH), thereby offering insights into their formation mechanisms. The…
Attempts to understand the formation of binary black hole (BBH) systems detected via gravitational wave (GW) emission are affected by many unknowns and uncertainties, from both the observational and theoretical (astrophysical modelling)…
This a particularly exciting time for gravitational wave physics. Ground-based gravitational wave detectors are now operating at a sensitivity such that gravitational radiation may soon be directly detected, and recently several groups have…
It has recently been pointed out that particles falling freely from rest at infinity outside a Kerr black hole can in principle collide with arbitrarily high center of mass energy in the limiting case of maximal black hole spin. Here we aim…
We study the spin dynamics of individual black holes in a binary system. In particular we focus on the polar precession of spins and the possibility of a complete flip of spins with respect to the orbital plane. We perform a full numerical…
Knowledge of the spin of the black hole resulting from the merger of a generic black-hole binary is of great importance for studying the cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes. Several attempts have been made to model the spin…
We determine the binding energy, the total gravitational wave energy flux, and the gravitational wave modes for a binary of rapidly spinning black holes, working in linearized gravity and at leading orders in the orbital velocity, but to…
We study the transition from inspiral to plunge in general relativity by computing gravitational waveforms of non-spinning, equal-mass black-hole binaries. We consider three sequences of simulations, starting with a quasi-circular inspiral…
The final state of a binary black hole merger is predicted with high precision by numerical relativity, but could there be a simple thermodynamic principle within general relativity that governs the selection of the remnant? Using…
Recent numerical relativistic simulations of black hole coalescence suggest that in certain alignments the emission of gravitational radiation can produce a kick of several thousand kilometers per second. This exceeds galactic escape…
For dark matter to be detectable with gravitational waves from binary black holes, it must reach higher than average densities in their vicinity. In the case of light (wave-like) dark matter, the density of dark matter between the binary…
Gravitational wave observations of eccentric binary black hole mergers will provide unequivocal evidence for the formation of these systems through dynamical assembly in dense stellar environments. The study of these astrophysically…
We present a highly accurate, fully analytical model for the late inspiral, merger, and ringdown of black-hole binaries with arbitrary mass ratios and spin vectors, including the contributions of harmonics beyond the fundamental mode. This…
Black hole (BH) - neutron star (NS) binary mergers are not only strong sources of gravitational waves (GWs), but they are also candidates for joint detections in the GW and electromagnetic (EM) spectra. However, the possible emergence of an…
We perform the first suite of fully general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of spinning massive black hole binary mergers. We consider binary black holes with spins of different magnitudes aligned to the orbital angular…
The continued operation of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors is enabling the first detailed measurements of the mass, spin, and redshift distributions of the merging binary black hole population. Our present…