Related papers: Evolution of massive black hole spins
Simulations of binary black hole mergers indicate that asymmetrical gravitational wave (GW) emission can cause black holes to recoil at speeds up to thousands of km/s. These GW recoil events can dramatically affect the coevolution of…
Supermassive black holes (BH) accrete gas from their surroundings and coalesce with companions during galaxy mergers, and both processes change the BH mass and spin. By means of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies, either…
Recent simulations of merging black holes with spin give recoil velocities from gravitational radiation up to several thousand km/s. A recoiling supermassive black hole can retain the inner part of its accretion disk, providing fuel for a…
Black holes at the centers of the galaxies grow mainly by the processes of accretion, mergers, and consumption of stars. In the case of gas accretion with cooling sources, the flow is momentum driven, after which the black hole reaches a…
We consider a subset of the physical processes that determine the spin j = a/M of astrophysical black holes. These include: (1) Initial conditions. Recent models suggest that the collapse of supermassive stars are likely to produce black…
In vacuum, the gravitational recoil of the final black hole from the merger of two black holes depends exclusively on the mass ratio and spins of the coalescing black holes, and on the eccentricity of the binary. If matter is present,…
Discerning the likelihood of the so-called runaway instability of thick accretion disks orbiting black holes is an important issue for most models of cosmic gamma-ray bursts. To this aim we investigate this phenomenon by means of…
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,…
We study the expected distribution of massive black hole (MBH) spins and its evolution with cosmic time in the context of hierarchical galaxy formation theories. Our model uses Monte Carlo realizations of the merger hierarchy in a LCDM…
We use the integrated spectrum of the X-ray background and quasars Spectral Energy Distribution to derive the contribution of quasars to the energy output of the Universe. We find a lower limit for the energy from accretion onto black holes…
The spin is an important but poorly constrained parameter for describing supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Using the continuity equation of SMBH number density, we explicitly obtain the mass-dependent cosmological evolution of the radiative…
Gravitational waves from the coalescence of binary black holes carry linear momentum, causing center of mass recoil. This ``radiation rocket'' has important implications for systems with escape speeds of order the recoil velocity. We…
We argue that supermassive black hole growth in AGN occurs via sequences of randomly--oriented accretion discs with angular momentum limited by self--gravity. These stably co-- or counter--align with the black hole spin with almost equal…
The growth of black holes and the formation and evolution of galaxies appear to be linked at such a fundamental level that we think of the two as `co-evolving.' Recent observations show that this co-evolution may be complex and the result…
In the last stages of a black hole merger, the binary can experience a recoil due to asymmetric emission of gravitational radiation. Recent numerical relativity simulations suggest that the recoil velocity can be as high as a few thousands…
The spin of a black hole retains the memory of how the black hole grew, and can be a potent source of energy for powering relativistic jets. To understand the diagnostic power and astrophysical significance of black hole spin, however, we…
The accretion disk that forms after a neutron star merger is a source of neutron-rich ejecta. The ejected material contributes to a radioactively-powered electromagnetic transient, with properties that depend sensitively on the composition…
Mass and spin of massive black holes (BHs) at the centre of galaxies evolve due to gas accretion and mergers with other BHs. Besides affecting e.g. the evolution of relativistic jets, the BH spin determines the efficiency with which the BH…
We evolve a binary black hole system bearing a mass ratio of $q=m_1/m_2=2/3$ and individual spins of $S^z_1/m_1^2=0.95$ and $S^z_2/m_2^2=-0.95$ in a configuration where the large black hole has its spin antialigned with the orbital angular…
We investigate the collapsar scenario for the long gamma ray bursts. The energetics % of explosions in the $\gamma$-ray band are consistent with the binding energy of a progenitor star. The events duration times, lightcurve profiles,…