Related papers: Testing the binary black hole nature of a compact …
According to the no-hair theorem, all astrophysical black holes are fully described by their masses and spins. This theorem can be tested observationally by measuring (at least) three different multipole moments of the spacetimes of black…
A gravitational wave (GW) signal carries imprints of the properties of its source. The ability to extract source properties crucially depends on our prior knowledge of the signal morphology. Even though binary black hole (BBH) mergers are…
Recent gravitational wave (GW) observations have enabled us to look beyond the standard paradigm of gravitational physics, namely general relativity (GR). Along with the mass and the angular momentum, which typical astrophysical black holes…
According to the no-hair theorem, an astrophysical black hole is uniquely described by only two quantities, the mass and the spin. In this series of papers, we investigate a framework for testing the no-hair theorem with observations of…
Gravitational-wave observations of compact binaries have the potential to uncover the distribution of masses and angular momenta of black holes and neutron stars in the universe. The binary components' physical parameters can be inferred…
Merging compact black-hole (BH) binaries are likely to exist in the nuclear star clusters around supermassive BHs (SMBHs), such as Sgr A$^\ast$. They may also form in the accretion disks of active galactic nuclei. Such compact binaries can…
The detection of gravitational waves from the inspiral of a neutron star or stellar-mass black hole into an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) promises an entirely new look at strong-field gravitational physics. Gravitational waves from…
Black holes in General Relativity are famously characterized by two "hairs" only, the mass and the spin of the Kerr spacetime. Theories extending General Relativity, however, allow in principle for additional black hole charges, which will…
As the compact binary catalog continues to grow rapidly, developing and refining tests to probe the nature of compact objects is essential for a comprehensive understanding of both the observed data and the underlying astrophysics of the…
The measurement of multipole moments of astrophysical objects through gravitational wave (GW) observations provides a novel way to distinguish black holes from other astrophysical objects. This paper studies the gravitational wave radiation…
A number of theoretical proposals have been made for horizonless compact objects with masses and spins similar to those of black holes. While gravitational wave signatures from their mergers can resemble those of black holes, features like…
Perturbed Kerr black holes emit gravitational radiation, which (for the practical purposes of gravitational-wave astronomy) consists of a superposition of damped sinusoids termed quasi-normal modes. The frequencies and time-constants of the…
The vast majority of compact binary mergers in the Universe produce gravitational waves that are too weak to yield unambiguous detections; they are unresolved. We present a method to infer the population properties of compact binaries --…
Gravitational waves from binary black holes have the potential to yield information on both of the intrinsic parameters that characterize the compact objects: their masses and spins. While the component masses are usually resolvable, the…
The coalescences of stellar-mass black-hole binaries through their inspiral, merger, and ringdown are among the most promising sources for ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. If a GW signal is observed with sufficient…
We investigate the prospect of performing a null test of binary black hole (BBH) nature using spin-induced quadrupole moment (SIQM) measurements. This is achieved by constraining a deviation parameter ($\delta\kappa$) related to the…
LIGO and Virgo have recently observed a number of gravitational wave (GW) signals that are fully consistent with being emitted by binary black holes described by general relativity. However, there are theoretical proposals of exotic objects…
The multipole moments of black holes in general relativity obey certain consistency relations known as the no-hair theorems. The details of this multipolar structure are imprinted into the gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes,…
Measurements of black-hole spins from gravitational-wave observations of black-hole binaries with ground-based detectors are expected to be hampered by partial degeneracies in the gravitational-wave phasing: between the two component spins,…
We describe a new numerical algorithm for ray tracing in the external spacetimes of spinning compact objects characterized by arbitrary quadrupole moments. Such spacetimes describe non-Kerr vacuum solutions that can be used to test the…