Related papers: Estimating the Prompt Electromagnetic Luminosity o…
We model the spectra and light curves of circumbinary accretion disks during the time after the central black holes merge. The most immediate effect of this merger is the dissipation of energy in the outer regions of the disk due to the…
Context: The LIGO consortium announced the first direct detection of gravitation wave event GW150914 from two merging black holes; however the nature of the black holes are still not clear. Aims: We study whether electromagnetic radiation…
We discuss the merger process of binary black holes with Hawking radiation taken into account. Besides the redshifted radiation to infinity, binary black holes can exchange radiation between themselves, which is first redshifted and then…
We present general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of merging equal-mass, spinning black holes embedded in an equatorial thin slab of magnetized gas. We evolve black holes either non-spinning, with spins aligned to the orbital…
The possible Fermi detection of an electromagnetic counterpart to the double black hole merger GW150914 has inspired many theoretical models, some of which propose that the holes spiraled together inside a massive star. However, we show…
Coincident detections of electromagnetic (EM) and gravitational wave (GW) signatures from coalescence events of supermassive black holes are the next observational grand challenge. Such detections will provide the means to study…
Recent breakthroughs in the field of numerical relativity have led to dramatic progress in understanding the predictions of General Relativity for the dynamical interactions of two black holes in the regime of very strong gravitational…
Recently, the direct detection of gravitational waves from black hole (BH) mergers was announced by the Advanced LIGO Collaboration. Multi-messenger counterparts of stellar-mass BH mergers are of interest, and it had been suggested that a…
Major galaxy mergers are thought to play an important part in fuelling the growth of supermassive black holes. However, observational support for this hypothesis is mixed, with some studies showing a correlation between merging galaxies and…
We present the first fully relativistic prediction of the electromagnetic emission from the surrounding gas of a supermassive binary black hole system approaching merger. Using a ray-tracing code to post-process data from a general…
When galaxies collide, dynamical friction drives their central supermassive black holes close enought to each other such that gravitational radiation becomes the leading dissipative effect. Gravitational radiation takes away energy,…
Any abundance of black holes that was present in the early universe will evolve as matter, making up an increasingly large fraction of the total energy density as space expands. This motivates us to consider scenarios in which the early…
In February 2016 the first observation of gravitational waves were reported. The source of this event, denoted as GW150914, was identified as the merger of two black holes with a about 30 solar masses each, at a distance of approximately…
With mass ratio larger than $\sim 5$ (which depends on the black hole spin and the star radius), star disruption is not expected for a black hole merging with a neutron star during the final plunge phase. In the late inspiral stage, the…
We report the discovery of a spectroscopically confirmed z = 1.824 minor merger with a mass ratio of ~35:1 in which the secondary (smaller) galaxy hosts a luminous AGN. The system is identified in the 3D-HST survey and exhibits clear tidal…
Supermassive black holes presumably grow through numerous mergers throughout cosmic time. During each merger, supermassive black hole binaries are surrounded by a circumbinary accretion disk that imposes a significant (~1e4 G for a binary…
The first Advanced LIGO observing run detected two black hole merger events with confidence and likely a third. Many groups organized to followup the events in the optical even though the strong theoretical prior that no optical emission…
In anticipation of a LIGO detection of a black hole/neutron star merger, we expand on the intriguing possibility of an electromagnetic counterpart. Black hole/Neutron star mergers could be disappointingly dark since most black holes will be…
The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO) has detected direct signals of gravitational waves (GWs) from GW150914. The event was a merger of binary black holes whose masses are $36^{+5}_{-4}M_{\odot}$ and…
Strong gravitational lensing occurs when photons pass through the vicinity of a black hole. We investigate this phenomenon in the context of a gravitational-wave event, specifically when a black hole is settling into its final state. The…