Related papers: Massive black hole binaries: dynamical evolution a…
Modeling the late inspiral and merger of supermassive black holes is central to understanding accretion processes and the conditions under which electromagnetic emission accompanies gravitational waves. We use fully general relativistic,…
The vast majority of massive binary systems in the universe is evidently unsuited to produce merging binary black holes. However, several narrow evolutionary paths of isolated massive binaries towards this goal have recently been…
Possible formation mechanisms of massive close binary black holes that can merge in the Hubble time to produce powerful gravitational wave bursts detected during advanced LIGO O1 science run are briefly discussed. The pathways include the…
Supermassive black holes are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies. Observations have revealed us vast information on the population of local and distant black holes, but the detailed physical properties of these dark massive…
The dynamic evolution of binary systems of supermassive black holes (SMBH) may be a key factor affecting a large fraction of the observed properties of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and galaxy evolution. Different classes of AGN can be…
Understanding the fate of merging supermassive black holes in galactic mergers, and the gravitational wave emission from this process, are important LISA science goals. To this end, we present results from numerical relativity simulations…
Rapid binary population synthesis codes are often used to investigate the evolution of compact-object binaries. They typically rely on analytical fits of single-star evolutionary tracks and parameterized models for interactive phases of…
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…
Up to now several gravitational-wave events from the coalescences of black hole binaries have been reported by LIGO/VIRGO, and imply that black holes should have an extended mass function. We work out the merger rate distribution of…
Mergers of black hole-neutron star (BHNS) binaries have now been observed by GW detectors with the recent announcement of GW200105 and GW200115. Such observations not only provide confirmation that these systems exist, but will also give…
The properties of the population of merging binary black holes encode some of the uncertain physics of the evolution of massive stars in binaries. The binary black hole merger rate and chirp mass distribution are being measured by…
The first directly detected gravitational waves (GW 150914) were emitted by two coalescing black holes (BHs) with masses of ~36Msun and ~29Msun. Several scenarios have been proposed to put this detection into an astrophysical context. The…
Supermassive black holes are expected to pair as a result of galaxy mergers, and form a bound binary at parsec or sub-parsec scales. These scales are unresolved even in nearby galaxies, and thus detection of non-active black hole binaries…
We investigated the evolution of the black hole binary formed by the merging of two galaxies each containing a central massive black hole. Our main goal here is to determine if the black hole binary can merge through the hardening by…
We are living through the dawn of the era of gravitational wave astronomy. Our first glances through this new window upon the sky has revealed a new population of objects. Since it first began observing in late 2015, the advanced Laser…
We address two important questions in gravitational-wave astronomy. What is the astrophysical formation scenario leading to black-hole binary mergers? Did some of the merging black holes form hierarchically through previous generations of…
The article summarizes the observational evidence for the existence of massive black holes, as well as the current knowledge about their abundance, their mass and spin distributions, and their cosmic evolution within and together with their…
We outline the eccentricity evolution of sub-parsec massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) forming in galaxy mergers. In both stellar and gaseous environments, MBHBs are expected to grow large orbital eccentricities before they enter the…
Electromagnetic observations have provided strong evidence for the existence of massive black holes in the center of galaxies, but their origin is still poorly known. Different scenarios for the formation and evolution of massive black…
The detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes with masses $\sim\,80-150\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ suggests that some proportion of black hole binary systems form hierarchically in dense astrophysical environments, as most stellar…