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Black holes hold a tremendous discovery potential. In this paper the extent to which the Event Horizon Telescope and its next generation upgrade can resolve their structure is quantified. Black holes are characterized by a perfectly…
We study the tidal deformations of the shape of a spinning black hole horizon due to a binary companion in the Bowen-York initial data set. We use the framework of quasi-local horizons and identify a black hole by marginally outer trapped…
Third generation gravitational wave (GW) detectors are expected to detect millions of binary black hole (BBH) mergers during their operation period. A small fraction of them ($\sim 1\%$) will be strongly lensed by intervening galaxies and…
Since 2015 the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO) has detected a large number of gravitational wave events, originating from both binary neutron stars and binary black hole (BBH) mergers. In light of these…
The recent observation of gravitational waves confirms one of the most interesting predictions in general relativity: the black holes. Because the gravitational waves detected by LIGO fit very well within general relativity as a phenomenon…
A perturbed black hole emits gravitational radiation, usually termed the ringdown signal, whose frequency and time-constant depends on the mass and spin of the black hole. I investigate the case of a binary black hole merger resulting from…
We study in detail the dynamics and stability of marginally trapped surfaces during a binary black hole merger. This is the second in a two-part study. The first part studied the basic geometric aspects of the world tubes traced out by the…
The merger of two black holes is one of the most extraordinary events in the natural world. Made of pure gravity, the holes combine to form a single hole, emitting a strong burst of gravitational radiation. Ground-based detectors are…
It has been speculated that quantum gravity corrections may lead to modifications to space-time geometry near black hole horizons. Such structures may cause reflections to gravitational waves, causing {\it echoes} that follow the main…
Black hole (BH) - neutron star (NS) binary mergers are not only strong sources of gravitational waves (GWs), but they are also candidates for joint detections in the GW and electromagnetic (EM) spectra. However, the possible emergence of an…
Ringdown signals from perturbed black holes (BHs) offer a clean window into BH spacetime, strong-field gravity, and fundamental physics. Presently the quasi-normal modes of stellar-mass BH ringdowns have been successfully extracted in the…
The localization of stellar-mass binary black hole mergers using gravitational waves is critical in understanding the properties of the binaries' host galaxies, observing possible electromagnetic emission from the mergers, or using them as…
The black hole area theorem implies that when two black holes merge, the area of the final black hole should be greater than the sum of the areas of the two original black holes. We examine how this prediction can be tested with…
Detailed observations of phenomena involving black holes, be it via gravitational waves or more traditional electromagnetic means, can probe the strong field regime of the gravitational interaction. The prediction of features in such…
The event horizon of a black hole is arguably the most dramatic manifestation of the fact that in General Relativity, causal structure is dynamical and spacetimes can be separated into distinct regions by causal boundaries. Causal set…
The ringdown phase following a binary black hole merger is usually assumed to be well described by a linear superposition of complex exponentials (quasinormal modes). In the strong-field conditions typical of a binary black hole merger,…
The impressive images from the Event Horizon Telescope sharpen the conflict between our observations of gravitational phenomena and the principles of quantum mechanics. Two related scenarios for reconciling quantum mechanics with the…
We propose a novel method to probe the parameters and origin channels of gravitational wave events using the escape velocities of their host environments. This method could lead to more convergent posterior distributions offering additional…
Recent developments in compact object astrophysics, especially the discovery of merging neutron stars by LIGO, the imaging of the black hole in M87 by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and high precision astrometry of the Galactic Center at…
The observation of gravitational waves emitted during the merging phase of compact binary coalescing objects has opened a new field of investigation in fundamental physics. It is now possible to test the predictions of General Relativity…