Related papers: Simulations of Binary Black Hole Mergers Using Spe…
Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHs) are a fascinating byproduct of galaxy mergers in the hierarchical universe. In the last stage of their orbital evolution, gravitational wave radiation drives the binary inspiral and produces the…
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…
Recent detections of gravitational waves from mergers of neutron stars (NSs) and black holes (BHs) in the low and high-end mass gap regimes pose a puzzle to standard stellar and binary evolution theory. Mass-gap mergers may originate from…
Spectacular breakthroughs in numerical relativity now make it possible to compute spacetime dynamics in almost complete generality, allowing us to model the coalescence and merger of binary black holes with essentially no approximations.…
We explore the gravitational-wave phenomenology of equal-mass inspiralling boson-star binaries using numerical relativity simulations. In particular, we characterise the waveform differences between binary boson-star and black-hole systems…
Using recent results from numerical relativity simulations of black hole mergers, we revisit previous studies of cosmological black hole spin evolution. We show that mergers are very unlikely to yield large spins, unless alignment of the…
We use a 3-D relativistic SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) code to study mergers of black hole -- neutron star (BH--NS) binary systems with low mass ratios, adopting $M_{NS}/M_{BH} \simeq 0.1$ as a representative case. The outcome of…
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…
Hierarchical mergers of black holes are proposed as a mechanism to explain the observations of binary black holes with component masses between $\sim 50M_{\odot}\hbox{--}130M_{\odot}$ by LIGO/Virgo, often referred to as "upper mass gap". We…
The hierarchical scenario of structure formation describes how objects like galaxies and galaxy clusters are formed by mergers of small objects. In this scenario, mergers of galaxies can lead to the formation of massive black hole (MBH)…
We present numerical simulations of orbiting black holes for around twelve cycles, using a high-order multipatch approach. Unlike some other approaches, the computational speed scales almost perfectly for thousands of processors. Multipatch…
We perform a systematic study of eccentric orbiting nonspinning black hole binaries. We first make a technical study of the optimal full numerical techniques to apply to these studies. We choose different gauge parameters and Courant…
We perform several consistency tests between different phases of binary black hole dynamics; the inspiral, the merger, and the ringdown on the gravitational wave events GW150914 and GW170814. These tests are performed explicitly in the time…
The recent release of the second Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-2) has increased significantly the number of known GW events, enabling unprecedented constraints on formation models of compact binaries. One pressing question is…
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…
The coalescence of two black holes generates gravitational waves that carry detailed information about the properties of those black holes and their binary configuration. The final coalescence cycles are in the form of a {\it ringdown}: a…
It is now possible to theoretically calculate the gravitational-wave signal from the inspiral, merger and ringdown of a black-hole-binary system. The late inspiral, merger and ringdown can be calculated in full general relativity using…
The ringdown signal following a black hole (BH) merger can be modeled as a superposition of BH quasinormal modes (QNMs), offering a clean setup for testing gravitational theories. In particular, detecting multiple QNMs enables consistency…
Primordial black hole (PBH) binaries experience strong gravitational perturbations in the case of their initial clustering, which significantly affects the dynamics of their mergers. In this work, we develop a new formalism to account for…
Black holes represent extreme conditions of physical laws. Being predicted about a century ago, they are now accepted as astrophysical reality by most of the scientific community. Only recently more direct evidence of their existence has…