Related papers: Precessional instability in binary black holes wit…
Spin precession occurs in binary black holes whose spins are misaligned with the orbital angular momentum. Otherwise, the spin configuration is constant and the subsequent binary dynamics and gravitational-wave emission are much simpler. We…
Binary black holes in which both spins are aligned with the binary's orbital angular momentum do not precess. However, the up-down configuration, in which the spin of the heavier (lighter) black hole is aligned (anti-aligned) with the…
Binary black holes with spins that are aligned with the orbital angular momentum do not precess. However, post-Newtonian calculations predict that "up-down" binaries, in which the spin of the heavier (lighter) black hole is aligned…
We analyze in detail the spin precession equations in binary black hole systems, when the tidal torque on a Kerr black hole due to quadrupole-monopole coupling is taken into account. We show that completing the precession equations with…
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 model the overall shape of an accretion disc in a semi-detached binary system in which mass is transfered on to a spinning black hole the spin axis of which is misaligned with the orbital rotation axis. We assume the disc is in a steady…
Binary black holes with misaligned spins will generically induce both precession and nutation of the orbital angular momentum $\bf{L}$ about the total angular momentum $\bf{J}$. These phenomena modulate the phase and amplitude of the…
The inspiral of binary black holes is governed by gravitational radiation reaction at binary separations r < 1000 M, yet it is too computationally expensive to begin numerical-relativity simulations with initial separations r > 10 M.…
The relativistic spin-precession equations for black-hole binaries have four different equilibrium solutions that correspond to systems where the two individual black hole spins are either aligned or anti-aligned with the orbital angular…
The future space-based gravitational wave detector LISA will be able to measure parameters of coalescing massive black hole binaries, often to extremely high accuracy. Previous work has demonstrated that the black hole spins can have a…
Black-hole binary spin precession admits equilibrium solutions corresponding to systems with (anti-) aligned spins. Among these, binaries in the up-down configuration, where the spin of the heavier (lighter) black hole is co- (counter-)…
Gravitational-wave observations of merging compact binaries hold the key to precision measurements of the objects' masses and spins. General-relativistic precession, caused by spins misaligned with the orbital angular momentum, is…
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…
We perform SPH simulations to study precession and changes in alignment between the circumprimary disc and the binary orbit in misaligned binary systems. We find that the precession process can be described by the rigid-disc approximation,…
A typical stellar mass black hole with a lighter companion is shown to succumb to a chaotic precession of the orbital plane. As a result, the optimal candidates for the direct detection of gravitational waves by Earth based interferometers…
Within the framework of 2PN black-hole binary spin precession, we explore configurations where one of the two spins oscillates from being completely aligned with the orbital angular momentum to being completely anti-aligned with it during a…
Recent observations have demonstrated that some subset of even moderately wide-separation planet-hosting binaries are preferentially configured such that planetary and binary orbits appear to lie within the same plane. In this work, we…
In this work, we use general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations to explore the effect of spin orientation on the dynamics of gas in the vicinity of merging black holes. We present a suite of eight simulations of unequal-mass,…
We analyze a tilt instability of the orbit of an outer planet in a two planet circumbinary system that we recently reported. The binary is on an eccentric orbit and the inner circumbinary planet is on a circular polar orbit that causes the…
A massive spin-2 field can grow unstably around a black hole, giving rise to a potential probe of the existence of such fields. In this work, we use time-domain evolutions to study such instabilities. Considering the linear regime by…