Related papers: Ultrafast Outflows from Black Hole Mergers with a …
Ultra-wide triple black-holes (TBHs; with an outer orbit $>10^3$ AU) in the field can be considerably perturbed by flyby encounters with field stars by the excitation of the outer orbit eccentricities. We study the cumulative effect of such…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a ubiquitous component of the nuclei of galaxies. It is normally assumed that, following the merger of two massive galaxies, a SMBH binary will form, shrink due to stellar or gas dynamical processes and…
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) can potentially probe low-mass black holes in host galaxies that might not adhere to bulge or stellar-dispersion relationships. At least initially, TDEs can also reveal super-Eddington accretion. X-ray…
Mergers of neutron star-neutron star (NS-NS) or neutron star-black hole (NS-BH) binaries are candidate sources of gravitational waves (GWs). At least a fraction of the merger remnant should be a stellar mass BH with a sub-relativistic…
We examine how future gravitational-wave measurements from merging black holes (BHs) can be used to infer the shape of the black-hole mass function, with important implications for the study of star formation and evolution and the…
We consider the possibility that the black-hole (BH) binary detected by LIGO may be a signature of dark matter. Interestingly enough, there remains a window for masses $20\,M_\odot \lesssim M_{\rm bh} \lesssim 100\, M_\odot$ where…
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,…
Determining the final result of black hole-neutron star mergers, and in particular the amount of matter remaining outside the black hole at late times and its properties, has been one of the main motivations behind the numerical simulation…
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…
Black hole - neutron star $(BH/NS)$ binaries are of interest in many ways: they are intrinsically multi-messenger systems, highly transient, radiate gravitational waves detectable by LIGO, and may produce $\gamma$-ray bursts. Although it…
During the final moments of a binary black hole (BH) merger, the gravitational wave (GW) luminosity of the system is greater than the combined electromagnetic output of the entire observable universe. However, the extremely weak coupling…
Based on a dynamical formation model of a supermassive black hole (SMBH), we estimate the expected observational profile of gravitational wave at ground-based detectors, such as KAGRA or advanced LIGO/VIRGO. Noting that the second…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
Among the four black hole binary merger events detected by LIGO, six progenitor black holes have masses greater than 20\,$M_\odot$. The existence of such massive BHs calls for extreme metal-poor stars as the progenitors. An alternative…
The coalescence of supermassive black hole binaries occurs via the emission of gravitational waves, that can impart a substantial recoil to the merged black hole. We consider the energy dissipation, that results if the recoiling black hole…
In the next few years Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) may see gravitational waves (GWs) from thousands of black hole (BH) mergers. This marks the beginning of a new precision tool for physics. Here we show how to search for new physics beyond the…
We report results from simulations in general relativity of magnetized disks accreting onto merging black hole binaries, starting from relaxed disk initial data. The simulations feature an effective, rapid radiative cooling scheme as a…
Finding electromagnetic (EM) counterparts of future gravitational wave (GW) sources would bring rich scientific benefits. A promising possibility, in the case of the coalescence of a super-massive black hole binary (SMBHB), is that prompt…
Gravitational-wave (GW) recoil of merging supermassive black holes (SMBHs) may influence the co-evolution of SMBHs and their host galaxies. We examine this possibility using SPH/N-body simulations of gaseous galaxy mergers in which the…
The recent detection of the gravitational wave source GW150914 by the LIGO collaboration motivates a speculative source for the origin of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays as a possible byproduct of the immense energies achieved in black hole…