Related papers: The final-parsec problem in the collisionless limi…
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,…
For a pair of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the remnant of a dual galaxy merger, well-known models exist to describe their dynamical evolution until the final coalescence accompanied by the emission of a low-frequency gravitational…
Spherically symmetric equal mass star clusters containing a large amount of primordial binaries are studied using a hybrid method, consisting of a gas dynamical model for single stars and a Monte Carlo treatment for relaxation of binaries…
Space-based observations are beginning to yield detailed information about the stellar kinematics at the very centers of galaxies, within the sphere of gravitational influence of the black hole. The structure and dynamics of these regions…
This paper studies the formation and evolution of binary supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in rotating galactic nuclei, focusing on the role of stellar dynamics. We present the first N-body simulations that follow the evolution of the SMBHs…
We study the formation of accretion disks resulting from dynamical three dimensional binary coalescence calculations, where a neutron star is tidally disrupted before being swallowed by its black hole companion. By subsequently assuming…
We report on key studies on the dynamics of black holes (BHs) in gas-rich galaxy mergers that underscore the vital role played by gas dissipation in promoting BH inspiral down to the smallest scales ever probed with use of high-resolution…
We compute the isotropic gravitational wave (GW) background produced by binary supermassive black holes (SBHs) in galactic nuclei. In our model, massive binaries evolve at early times via gravitational-slingshot interaction with nearby…
Astrophysical black holes could be nearly extremal (that is, rotating nearly as fast as possible); therefore, nearly extremal black holes could be among the binaries that current and future gravitational-wave observatories will detect.…
The spin of the final black hole in the coalescence of nonspinning black holes is determined by the ``residual'' orbital angular momentum of the binary. This residual momentum consists of the orbital angular momentum that the binary is not…
We study the coalescence of non-spinning binary black holes from near the innermost stable circular orbit down to the final single rotating black hole. We use a technique that combines the full numerical approach to solve Einstein…
Circularly orbiting black hole-gaseous star close binary systems are examined by using numerically exact stationary configurations in the framework of Newtonian gravity. We have chosen a polytropic star for the fluid component of the binary…
By using direct N-body numerical simulations, we model the dynamical co-evolution of two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the surrounding stars in merging galaxies. In order to investigate how different stellar components evolve during…
We study the evolution of disk accretion during the merger of supermassive black hole binaries in galactic nuclei. In hierarchical galaxy formation models, the most common binaries are likely to arise from minor galactic mergers, and have…
We propose a new scenario for the evolution of a binary of primordial black holes (PBHs). We consider a dynamical friction by ambient dark matter, scattering of dark matter particles with a highly eccentric orbit besides the standard…
We study the collapse of rapidly rotating supermassive stars that may have formed in the early Universe. By self-consistently simulating the dynamics from the onset of collapse using three-dimensional general-relativistic hydrodynamics with…
We develop a formalism for studying the dynamics of massive black hole binaries embedded in gravitationally-bound stellar cusps, and study the binary orbital decay by three-body interactions, the impact of stellar slingshots on the density…
We model for the first time the complete orbital evolution of a pair of Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) in a 1:10 galaxy merger of two disk dominated gas-rich galaxies, from the stage prior to the formation of the binary up to the onset of…
We discuss the latest results of numerical simulations following the orbital decay of massive black hole pairs in galaxy mergers. We highlight important differences between gas-poor and gas-rich hosts, and between orbital evolution taking…
The speed gain of a test mass from taking a gravitational slingshot around a celestial object (scattering centre) increases with the latter's speed and compactness (stronger deflection of the mass' trajectory becomes possible without it…