Related papers: Black hole mergers: do gas discs lead to spin alig…
We investigate the effect of black hole spin on warped or misaligned accretion discs - in particular i) whether or not the inner disc edge aligns with the black hole spin and ii) whether the disc can maintain a smooth transition between an…
We compute the effect of an orbiting gas disc in promoting the coalescence of a central supermassive black hole binary. Unlike earlier studies, we consider a finite mass of gas with explicit time dependence: we do not assume that the gas…
Supermassive black-hole binaries are driven to merger by dynamical friction, loss-cone scattering of individual stars, disk migration, and gravitational-wave emission. Two main formation scenarios are expected. Binaries that form in…
The spin of black holes in black hole-neutron star (BHNS) binaries can have a strong influence on the merger dynamics and the postmerger state; a wide variety of spin magnitudes and orientations are expected to occur in nature. In this…
Recent studies of accretion onto supermassive black hole binaries suggest that much, perhaps most, of the matter eventually accretes onto one hole or the other. If so, then for binaries whose inspiral from ~1 pc to 0.001 - 0.01 pc is driven…
Interactions between a supermassive black hole binary and the surrounding accretion disc can both assist the binary inspiral and align the black hole spins to the disc angular momentum. While binary migration is due to angular-momentum…
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…
Supermassive black hole binaries are likely to accrete interstellar gas through a circumbinary disk. Shortly before merger, the inner portions of this circumbinary disk are subject to general relativistic effects. To study this regime, we…
The inspiral of supermassive black-hole binaries in gas-rich environment is driven by the presence of an accretion disc and viscous interactions tend to align the spin of the black holes with the orbital angular momentum of the disc. Recent…
Accreting black holes (BHs) produce intense radiation and powerful relativistic jets, which are affected by the BH's spin magnitude and direction. While thin disks might align with the BH spin axis via the Bardeen-Petterson effect, this…
We present general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of equal-mass spinning black hole binary mergers embedded in a magnetized gas cloud. We focus on the effect of the spin orientation relative to the orbital angular momentum…
Disc-driven migration is a key evolutionary stage of supermassive black-hole binaries hosted in gas-rich galaxies. Besides promoting the inspiral, viscous interactions tend to align the spins of the black holes with the orbital angular…
We estimate the accretion rates produced when a circumprimary gas disc is pushed into the primary supermassive black hole (SMBH) by the tidal force of the decaying secondary during a SMBH merger. Using the 3D Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics…
We discuss the timescales for alignment of black hole and accretion disc spins in the context of binary systems. We show that for black holes that are formed with substantial angular momentum, the alignment timescales are likely to be at…
Parsec-scale separation supermassive black hole binaries in the centre of gas-rich galaxy merger remnants could be surrounded by massive circumbinary discs (CBDs). Black hole mass and spin evolution during the gas-rich binary inspiral are…
Using high resolution hydrodynamical simulations, we explore the spin evolution of massive dual black holes orbiting inside a circumnuclear disc, relic of a gas-rich galaxy merger. The black holes spiral inwards from initially eccentric co…
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…
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…
Accretion discs are present around both stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries and supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. A wide variety of circumstantial evidence implies that many of these discs are warped. The standard…
In this paper, we explore the gravitomagnetic interaction of a black hole (BH) with a misaligned accretion disc to study BH spin precession and alignment jointly with BH mass and spin parameter evolution, under the assumption that the disc…