Related papers: Precessional instability in binary black holes wit…
The spin properties of merging black holes observed with gravitational waves can offer novel information about the origin of these systems. The magnitude and orientations of black hole spins offer a record of binaries' evolutionary history,…
We study linearized perturbations of Myers-Perry black holes in d=7, with two of the three angular momenta set to be equal, and show that instabilities always appear before extremality. Analogous results are expected for all higher odd d.…
Binary-black-hole orbits precess when the black-hole spins are mis-aligned with the binary's orbital angular momentum. The apparently complicated dynamics can in most cases be described as simple precession of the orbital angular momentum…
We give a unified description of the flip-flop effect in spinning binary black holes and the anti-alignment instability in terms of real and imaginary flip-flop frequencies. We find that this instability is only effective for mass ratios…
We present analytical and numerical progress on black-hole binary spin precession at second post-Newtonian order using multi-timescale methods. In addition to the commonly used effective spin which acts as a constant of motion, we exploit…
Given the absence of observations of black hole binaries, it is critical that the full range of accessible parameter space be explored in anticipation of future observation with gravitational wave detectors. To this end, we compile the…
Gravitational waves from spin-precessing binaries exhibit amplitude oscillations that provide an invaluable method to extract the spins of the inspiraling compact objects. The spin-spin and spin-orbit interactions that cause this effect are…
We evolve a set of 32 equal-mass black-hole binaries with collinear spins (with intrinsic spin magnitudes $|\vec{S}_{1,2}/m^2_{1,2}|=0.8$) to study the effects of precession in the highly nonlinear plunge and merger regimes. We compare the…
The spin-orbit misalignment of stellar-mass black hole (sBH) binaries provide important constraints on the formation channels of merging sBHs. Here, we study the role of secular spin-orbit resonance in the evolution of a sBH binary…
In binary-black-hole systems where the black-hole spins are misaligned with the orbital angular momentum, precession effects leave characteristic modulations in the emitted gravitational waveform. Here, we investigate where in the parameter…
Using recent results from numerical relativity simulations of black hole mergers, we revisit previous studies of cosmological black hole spin evolution. We show that mergers are very unlikely to yield large spins, unless alignment of the…
We revisit the problem of predicting the spin magnitude and direction of the black hole resulting from the merger of two black holes with arbitrary masses and spins inspiralling in quasi-circular orbits. We do this by analyzing a catalog of…
It has been conjectured that higher-dimensional rotating black holes become unstable at a sufficiently large value of the rotation, and that new black holes with pinched horizons appear at the threshold of the instability. We search…
After eleven gravitational-wave detections from compact-binary mergers, we are yet to observe the striking general-relativistic phenomenon of orbital precession. Measurements of precession would provide valuable insights into the…
The complex astrophysical processes leading to the formation of binary black holes and their eventual merger are imprinted on the spins of the individual black holes. We revisit the astrophysical distribution of those spins based on…
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…
Numerical-relativity simulation is performed for rapidly spinning black holes (BHs) in a higher-dimensional spacetime of special symmetries for the dimensionality $6 \leq d \leq 8$. We find that higher-dimensional BHs, spinning rapidly…
The astrophysical origins of the binary black hole systems seen with gravitational waves are still not well understood. However, features in the distribution of black-hole masses, spins, redshifts, and eccentricities provide clues into how…
Accretion discs are common in binary systems, and they are often found to be misaligned with respect to the binary orbit. The gravitational torque from a companion induces nodal precession in misaligned disc orbits. We calculate whether…
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…