Related papers: Zoom-Whirl Orbits in Black Hole Binaries
In addition to producing gravitational waves (GW), the dynamics of a binary black hole system could induce emission of electromagnetic (EM) radiation by affecting the behavior of plasmas and electromagnetic fields in their vicinity. We here…
Recent studies of accretion onto supermassive black hole binaries suggest that much, perhaps most, of the matter eventually accretes onto one hole or the other. If so, then for binaries whose inspiral from ~1 pc to 0.001 - 0.01 pc is driven…
Superradiant clouds may develop around a rotating black hole, if there is a bosonic field with Compton wavelength comparable to the size of the black hole. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the cloud on the orbits of nearby…
Rotating axisymmetric objects amplify incoming waves by superradiant scattering. When enclosed in a cavity, the repeated interaction of a confined field with the object may trigger superradiant instabilities. Rotating binaries are…
We perform numerical simulations of black-hole binaries to study the exchange of spin and orbital angular momentum during the last, highly nonlinear, stages of the coalescence process. To calculate the transfer of angular momentum from…
We show that under certain astrophysical conditions a binary system consisting of two compact objects can be stabilized against indefinite shrinking of orbits due to the emission of gravitational radiation. In this case, the lighter binary…
Mergers of gas-rich galaxies lead to black hole binaries that coalesce as a result of dynamical friction on the ambient gas. Once the binary tightens to <10^3 Schwarzschild radii, its merger is driven by the emission of gravitational waves…
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…
With hydrodynamical simulations we examine the evolution of a highly misaligned circumbinary disc around a black hole binary including the effects of general relativity. We show that a disc mass of just a few percent of the binary mass can…
As one step towards a systematic modeling of the electromagnetic (EM) emission from an inspiralling black hole binary we consider a simple scenario in which the binary moves in a uniform magnetic field anchored to a distant circumbinary…
The orbits of two black holes which are initially unbound can be transformed into bound orbits by emitting gravitational waves during close encounters in a star cluster, which is called a gravitational wave (GW) capture. The effects of spin…
The orbital evolution of a binary system consisting of two primordial black hole clusters is investigated. Such clusters are predicted in some theoretical models with broken symmetry in the inflation Lagrangian. A cluster consists of the…
We study the orbital evolution of black hole (BH) binaries in quadruple systems, where the tertiary binary excites large eccentricity in the BH binary through Lidov-Kozai (LK) oscillations, causing the binary BHs to merge via gravitational…
We present a study of the gravitational time delay of arrival of signals from binary pulsar systems with rotating black hole companions. In particular, we investigate the strength of this effect (Shapiro delay) as a function of the…
The merger of a binary black hole gives birth to a highly distorted final black hole. The gravitational radiation emitted as this black hole relaxes presents us with the unique opportunity to probe extreme gravity and its connection with…
We review current challenges in understanding the values and origin of the spins of black holes in binaries. Thanks to recent advances in astrophysical instrumentation, the spins can now be measured using both gravitational waves emitted by…
Recent X-ray timing and spectral observations of black hole binaries in outburst have redefined methods for investigating the properties of Galactic black holes and the physics of accretion flows. High-frequency X-ray QPOs in 5 systems…
Increased eccentricity of a black hole binary leads to reduced merger times. With n-body simulations and analytic approximations including the effects of general relativity (GR), we show that even a low mass companion orbiting a black hole…
In the last few years before merger, supermassive black hole binaries will rapidly inspiral and precess in a magnetic field imposed by a surrounding circumbinary disk. Multiple simulations suggest this relative motion will convert some of…
The orientation of a massive binary undergoes a random walk due to gravitational encounters with field stars. The rotational diffusion coefficient for a circular-orbit binary is derived via scattering experiments. The binary is shown to…