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I overview the current understanding of the evolution of massive black hole (MBH) binaries in the center of the host stellar system. One of the main questions is whether the stellar dynamical effect can make the MBH binary hard enough that…
We use numerical simulations to study the evolution of triaxial elliptical galaxies with central black holes. In contrast to earlier numerical studies which used galaxy models with central density ``cores,'' our galaxies have steep central…
We investigate the energy of the gravitational wave from a binary black hole merger by the coalescence of two Kerr black holes with an orbital angular momentum. The coalescence is constructed to be consistent with particle absorption in the…
The coalescence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) should generate the strongest sources of gravitational waves (GWs) in the Universe. However, the dynamics of their coalescence is the subject of much debate. In this study, we use a suite…
We investigate the orbital eccentricity evolution of supermassive black hole binaries within galactic environments. We analyze the dynamics in triaxial merger remnants and subsequent interactions with geometrically thick nuclear discs. We…
We present a new approach to studying the evolution of massive black hole binaries in a stellar environment. By imposing conservation of total energy and angular momentum in scattering experiments, we find the dissipation forces that are…
At low redshift, massive black holes are found in the centers of almost all large elliptical galaxies, and also in many lower-mass systems. Their evolution is believed to be inextricably entangled with that of their host galaxies. On the…
Making use of a new N-body model to describe the evolution of a moderate-size globular cluster we investigate the characteristics of the population of black holes within such a cluster. This model reaches core-collapse and achieves a peak…
We incorporate a simple scheme for the growth of supermassive black holes into semi-analytic models that follow the formation and evolution of galaxies in a cold dark matter dominated Universe. We assume that supermassive black holes are…
We demonstrate the existence of an enhanced rate of angular momentum relaxation in nearly Keplerian star clusters, such as those found in the centers of galactic nuclei containing massive black holes. The enhanced relaxation arises because…
We study the evolution of a massive black hole pair in a rotationally supported nuclear disc. The distributions of stars and gas mimic the nuclear region of a gas-rich galaxy merger remnant. Using high-resolution SPH simulations, we follow…
Binary supermassive black holes are produced by galactic mergers as the black holes from the two galaxies fall to the center of the merged system and form a bound pair. The two black holes will eventually coalesce in an enormous burst of…
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 consider the interaction between a binary system (e.g. two supermassive black holes or two stars) and an external accretion disc with misaligned angular momentum. This situation occurs in galaxy merger events involving supermassive black…
We study the formation of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary and the shrinking of the separation of the two holes to sub-pc scales starting from a realistic major merger between two gas-rich spiral galaxies with mass comparable to our…
We compute the expected low-frequency gravitational wave signal from coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries at the center of galaxies. We follow the merging history of halos and associated holes via cosmological Monte Carlo…
We study the orbital decay of a pair of massive black holes (BHs) with masses 5 * 10^5 and 10^7 M_sun, using hydrodynamical simulations of circumnuclear disks (CNDs) with the alternating presence of sub-grid physics such as radiative…
Binary black holes can form efficiently in dense young stellar clusters, such as the progenitors of globular clusters, via a combination of gravitational segregation and cluster evaporation. We use simple analytic arguments supported by…
The massive black holes we observe in galaxies today are the natural end-product of a complex evolutionary path, in which black holes seeded in proto-galaxies at high redshift grow through cosmic history via a sequence of mergers and…
Massive black-hole binaries will be the loudest sources detectable by LISA. These systems are predicted to form during the hierarchical assembly of cosmic structures and coalesce by interacting with the surrounding environment. The…