Related papers: Constraining black-hole spins with gravitational w…
Orbital eccentricity is one of the most robust discriminators for distinguishing between dynamical and isolated formation scenarios of binary black hole mergers using gravitational-wave observatories such as LIGO and Virgo. Using…
The Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational wave detectors have detected a population of binary black hole mergers in their first two observing runs. For each of these events we have been able to associate a potential sky location…
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…
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…
The advent of gravitational-wave astronomy is now allowing for the study of compact binary merger demographics throughout the Universe. This information can be leveraged as tools for understanding massive stars, their environments, and…
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…
We present the population properties of merging compact binaries inferred using 267 mergers from the cumulative Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog 5.0. As this data set contains no new sources with a neutron star, we primarily focus on…
Compact objects observed via gravitational waves are classified as black holes or neutron stars primarily based on their inferred mass with respect to stellar evolution expectations. However, astrophysical expectations for the lowest mass…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
The observation of gravitational waves from multiple compact binary coalescences by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detector networks has enabled us to infer the underlying distribution of compact binaries across a wide range of masses, spins, and…
GW200115 was the second merger of a black hole and a neutron star confidently detected through gravitational waves. Inference on the signal allows for a large black hole spin misaligned with the orbital angular momentum, but shows little…
We perform a systematic study to explore the accuracy with which the parameters of intermediate-mass black-hole binary systems can be measured from their gravitational wave (GW) signatures using second-generation GW detectors. We make use…
In the presence of an ultralight scalar or vector boson, a spinning black hole will be spun down through the superradiant instability. We use spin measurements from gravitational wave observations of binary black holes, in particular the…
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…
Searching for gravitational waves (GWs) from binary black holes (BBHs) with LIGO and Virgo involves matched-filtering data against a set of representative signal waveforms --- a template bank --- chosen to cover the full signal space of…
To date, close to fifty presumed black hole binary mergers were observed by the LIGO and Virgo detectors. The analyses have been done with an assumption that these objects are black holes by limiting the spin prior to the Kerr bound.…
The primary and secondary masses of the binary black holes (BBH) reported by LIGO/Virgo are correlated with a narrow dispersion that appears to increase in proportion to mass. The mean binary mass ratio $1.45\pm0.07$ we show is consistent…
The origins of the coalescing binary black holes (BBHs) detected by the advanced LIGO/Virgo are still in debate and clues may present in the mass and effective spin ($\chi_{\rm eff}$) distributions of these merger events. Here we analyze…
Gravitational waves carry away both energy and angular momentum as binary black holes inspiral and merge. The relative efficiency with which they are radiated determines whether the final black hole of mass $M_f$ and spin $S_f$ saturates…
We study the influence of astrophysical formation scenarios on the precessional dynamics of spinning black-hole binaries by the time they enter the observational window of second- and third-generation gravitational-wave detectors, such as…