Related papers: Maximum black-hole spin from quasi-circular binary…
We present the results of 61 new simulations of nonprecessing spinning black hole binaries with mass ratios $q=m_1/m_2$ in the range $1/3\leq q\leq1$ and individual spins covering the parameter space $-0.85\leq\alpha_{1,2}\leq0.85$. We…
We study the basic properties of accretion flows onto binary supermassive black holes, including the cases in which a circumbinary disk is misaligned with the binary orbital plane, by means of three-dimensional Smoothed Particle…
We present fully relativistic predictions for the electromagnetic emission produced by accretion disks surrounding spinning and nonspinning supermassive binary black holes on the verge of merging. We use the code Bothros to post-process…
A typical galaxy is thought to contain tens of millions of stellar-mass black holes, the collapsed remnants of once massive stars, and a single nuclear supermassive black hole. Both classes of black holes accrete gas from their…
The spin of a number of black holes (BHs) in binary systems has been measured. In the case of BHs found in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) the observed values are in agreement with some theoretical predictions based on binary stellar…
We investigate whether a circumbinary gas disc can coalesce a supermassive black hole binary system in the centre of a galaxy. This is known to be problematic for a prograde disc. We show that in contrast, interaction with a retrograde…
The maximum mass of black holes formed in isolated binaries is determined by stellar winds and the interactions between the binary components. We consider for the first time fully self-consistent detailed stellar structure and binary…
We systematically performed numerical-relativity simulations for black hole (BH) - neutron star (NS) binary mergers with a variety of the BH spin orientation and equations of state (EOS) of the NS. The initial misalignment angles of the BH…
We study conformally-flat initial data for an arbitrary number of spinning black holes with exact analytic solutions to the momentum constraints constructed from a linear combination of the classical Bowen-York and conformal Kerr extrinsic…
We present three-dimensional Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations investigating the dependence of the accretion rate on the disc thickness around an equal-mass, circular black hole binary system. We find that for thick/hot…
It is widely believed that the spin of black holes in X-ray binaries is mainly natal. A significant spin-up from accretion is not possible. If the secondary has a low mass, the black hole spin cannot change too much even if the black hole…
The influence of disc radiation capture upon black hole rotational evolution is negligible for radiatively inefficient discs. For the standard thin disc model it is a slight but potentially important effect leading to the equilibrium spin…
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…
The accretion of material onto a black hole modifies the properties of that hole owing to the capture of both matter and radiation. Adding matter to the hole through an accretion disc generally acts to increase the hole's spin parameter,…
We explore the impact of black hole spins on the dynamics of high-energy black hole collisions. We report results from numerical simulations with gamma-factors up to 2.49 and dimensionless spin parameter +0.85, +0.6, 0, -0.6, -0.85. We find…
A circumbinary disc around a pair of merging stellar-mass black holes may be shocked and heated during the recoil of the merged hole, causing a near-simultaneous electromagnetic counterpart to the gravitational wave event. The shocks occur…
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…
The observational signatures of black holes in x-ray binary systems depend on their masses, spins, accretion rate and the misalignment angle between the black hole spin and the orbital angular momentum. We present optical polarimetric…
In this short review we describe some of the latest endeavours to understand the activity around Black Holes. First, it has been possible to demonstrate that a large part of the electromagnetic emission observed can be interpreted as…
We describe recent numerical simulations of the merger of a class of equal mass, non-spinning, eccentric binary black hole systems in general relativity. We show that with appropriate fine-tuning of the initial conditions to a region of…