Related papers: Are the observed black hole mergers spins consiste…
The observed binary black hole (BBH) mergers indicate a large Galactic progenitor population continuously evolving from large orbital separations and low gravitational wave (GW) frequencies to the final merger phase. We investigate the…
The astrophysical origin of gravitational wave (GW) events is one of the most timely problems in the wake of the LIGO/Virgo discoveries. In active galactic nuclei (AGN), binaries form and evolve efficiently by dynamical interactions and…
Pair-instability supernova (PISN) prevents black-hole formation from stellar collapse within the approximate mass range $M\in [65,130]M_\odot$. However, such black holes may form hierarchically through merging ancestral black holes, whose…
With the discovery of the binary black hole coalescence GW150914, the era of gravitational-wave astrophysics has started. Gravitational-wave signals emitted by compact binary coalescences will be detected in large number by LIGO and Virgo…
The age of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy has begun, and black hole (BH) mergers detected by LIGO are providing novel constraints on massive star evolution. A major uncertainty in stellar theory is the angular momentum (AM) transport…
Repeated black-hole mergers in dense stellar clusters are a plausible mechanism to populate the predicted gap in black hole masses due to the pair-instability supernova process. These hierarchical mergers carry distinct spin characteristics…
As the number of gravitational wave observations has increased in recent years, the variety of sources has broadened. Here we investigate whether it is possible for the current generation of detectors to distinguish between very short-lived…
The gravitational wave event GW190521 involves the merger of two black holes of $\sim 85\text{M}_\odot$ and $\sim 66\text{M}_\odot$ forming an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) of mass $\sim 142\text{M}_\odot$. Both progenitors are…
We consider a subset of the physical processes that determine the spin j = a/M of astrophysical black holes. These include: (1) Initial conditions. Recent models suggest that the collapse of supermassive stars are likely to produce black…
The Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors have now observed approximately 50 black-hole-binary mergers, from which we can begin to infer how rapidly astrophysical black holes spin. The LIGO-Virgo Collaboration (LVC) analysis of detections up to…
Despite the rapidly growing number of stellar-mass binary black hole mergers discovered through gravitational waves, the origin of these binaries is still not known. In galactic centers, black holes can be brought to each others' proximity…
Black hole-neutron star (BHNS) mergers are thought to be sources of gravitational waves (GWs) with coincident electromagnetic (EM) counterparts. To further probe whether these systems are viable progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs)…
There are at least two formation scenarios consistent with the first gravitational-wave observations of binary black hole mergers. In field models, black hole binaries are formed from stellar binaries that may undergo common envelope…
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,…
Gravitational wave measurements will provide insight into the population of coalescing compact binaries throughout the universe. We describe and demonstrate a flexible parametric method to infer the event rate as a function of compact…
We explore the possibility that GW190412, a binary black hole merger with a non-equal-mass ratio and significantly spinning primary, was formed through repeated black hole mergers in a dense super star cluster. Using a combination of…
Gravitational-wave observations of massive, rapidly spinning binary black holes mergers provide increasing evidence for the dynamical origin of some mergers. Previous studies have interpreted the mergers with primary mass…
The first directly observed gravitational wave event, GW150914, featuring the merger of two massive black holes, highlighted the need to determine how these systems of compact remnant binaries are formed. We use the binary population…
The black holes detected by current and future interferometers can have diverse origins. Their expected mass and spin distributions depend on the specifics of the formation mechanisms. When a physically motivated prior distribution is used…
The LIGO/Virgo collaboration has reported 50 black hole-black hole (BH-BH) mergers and 8 candidates recovered from digging deeper into the detectors noise. The majority of these mergers have low effective spins pointing toward low BH spins…