Related papers: A Direct Probe of Mass Density Near Inspiraling Bi…
The detection of gravitational waves from the merger of binary black holes by the LIGO Collaboration has opened a new window to astrophysics. With the sensitivities of ground based detectors in the coming years we can only detect the local…
Recent X-ray observations of galaxies with ROSAT, ASCA, and Chandra have revealed numerous bright off-center point sources which, if isotropic emitters, are likely to be intermediate-mass black holes, with hundreds to thousands of solar…
The recent Advanced LIGO detection of gravitational waves from the binary black hole GW150914 suggests there exists a large population of merging binary black holes in the Universe. Although most are too distant to be individually resolved…
Are the stellar-mass merging binary black holes, recently detected by their gravitational wave signal, of stellar or primordial origin? Answering this question will have profound implications for our understanding of the Universe, including…
The formation of compact stellar-mass binaries is a difficult, but interesting problem in astrophysics. There are two main formation channels: In the field via binary star evolution, or in dense stellar systems via dynamical interactions.…
We review the state of the evidence for the existence and observational appearance of supermassive black hole binaries. Such objects are expected from standard hierarchical galaxy evolution to form after two galaxies, each containing a…
Massive black hole binary systems are among the most interesting sources for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA); gravitational radiation emitted during the last year of in-spiral could be detectable with a very large…
The upcoming LISA mission will be able to detect gravitational waves from galactic and extragalactic compact binaries. Here, we report on LISA's capability to probe dark matter around these binaries if the latter constitute black holes. By…
Unlike traditional electromagnetic measurements, gravitational-wave observations are not affected by crowding and extinction. For this reason, compact object binaries orbiting around a massive black hole can be used as probes of the inner…
The Galaxy is suspected to contain hundreds of millions of binary white dwarf systems, a large fraction of which will have sufficiently small orbital period to emit gravitational radiation in band for space-based gravitational wave…
A populations of stellar mass black hole binaries may exist in globular clusters. The dynamics of globular cluster evolution imply that there may be at most one black hole binary is a globular cluster. The population of binaries are…
Space based gravitational wave astronomy will open a completely new window on the Universe and massive black holes binaries are expected to be among the primary actors on this upcoming stage. The New Gravitational-wave Observatory (NGO) is…
Using the black hole merger rate inferred from LIGO, we calculate the abundance of tightly bound binary black holes in the Milky Way galaxy. Binaries with a small semimajor axis ($\lesssim 10 R_\odot$) originate at larger separations…
Understanding the formation and evolution of the stellar-mass binary black holes discovered by LIGO and Virgo is a challenge that spans many areas of astrophysics, from stellar evolution, dynamics and accretion disks, to possible exotic…
In this thesis we consider the data analysis problem of detecting gravitational waves emitted by inspiraling binary systems. Detection of gravitational waves will open a new window on the Universe enabling direct detection of systems such…
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is one of a new generation of detectors of gravitational radiation. The existence of gravitational radiation was first predicted by Einstein in 1916, however gravitational waves…
Future gravitational wave interferometers such as LISA, Taiji, DECIGO, and TianQin, will enable precision studies of the environment surrounding black holes. In this paper, we study intermediate and extreme mass ratio binary black hole…
With the discovery of both binary black hole mergers and a binary neutron star merger the field of Gravitational Wave Astrophysics has really begun. The current advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors are laser interferometers that will improve…
We are living through the dawn of the era of gravitational wave astronomy. Our first glances through this new window upon the sky has revealed a new population of objects. Since it first began observing in late 2015, the advanced Laser…
Binary systems of massive black holes will be detectable by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) throughout the entire Universe. Observations of gravitational waves from this class of sources will have important repercussions on…