Related papers: GW$\times$LSS: Chasing the Progenitors of Merging …
We investigate a possible method for determining the progenitors of black hole (BH) mergers observed via their gravitational wave (GW) signal. We argue that measurements of the cross-correlation of the GW events with overlapping galaxy…
Recent Advanced LIGO detections of binary black hole mergers have prompted multiple studies investigating the possibility that the heavy GW150914 binary system was of primordial origin, and hence could be evidence for dark matter in the…
Recent detections of gravitational waves from merging binary black holes opened new possibilities to study the evolution of massive stars and black hole formation. In particular, stellar evolution models may be constrained on the basis of…
Advanced LIGO detectors at Hanford and Livingston made two confirmed and one marginal detection of binary black holes during their first observing run. The first event, GW150914, was from the merger of two black holes much heavier that…
The discovery of the gravitational-wave source GW150914 with the Advanced LIGO detectors provides the first observational evidence for the existence of binary black-hole systems that inspiral and merge within the age of the Universe. Such…
The growing number of binary black hole mergers detected through gravitational waves offers unprecedented insight into their underlying population, yet their astrophysical formation channels remain unresolved. We present a new method to…
The LIGO and Virgo detectors have directly observed gravitational waves from mergers of pairs of stellar-mass black holes, along with a smaller number of mergers involving neutron stars. These observations raise the hope that compact object…
The detection of a subsolar object in a compact binary merger is regarded as one of the most compelling signatures of a population of primordial black holes (PBHs). We critically examine whether such systems can be distinguished from…
The possible existence of primordial black holes (PBHs) is an open question in modern cosmology. Among the probes to test it, gravitational waves (GW) coming from their mergers constitute a powerful tool. In this work, we study how stellar…
The merger rate of black hole binaries inferred from the detections in the first Advanced LIGO science run, implies that a stochastic background produced by a cosmological population of mergers will likely mask the primordial…
Now that LIGO has revealed the existence of a large number of binary black holes, identifying their origin becomes an important challenge. They might originate in more isolated regions of the galaxy or alternatively they might reside in…
The measurement of gravitational waves produced by binary black-hole mergers at the Advanced LIGO has encouraged extensive studies on the stochastic gravitational wave background. Recent studies have focused on gravitational wave sources…
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…
The first directly detected gravitational waves (GW 150914) were emitted by two coalescing black holes (BHs) with masses of ~36Msun and ~29Msun. Several scenarios have been proposed to put this detection into an astrophysical context. The…
Binary black holes occupy a special place in our quest for understanding the evolution of galaxies along cosmic history. If massive black holes grow at the center of (pre-)galactic structures that experience a sequence of merger episodes,…
It remains an open question whether the binary black hole mergers observed with gravitational-wave detectors originate from the evolution of isolated massive binary stars or were dynamically driven by perturbations from the environment.…
Possible formation mechanisms of massive close binary black holes that can merge in the Hubble time to produce powerful gravitational wave bursts detected during advanced LIGO O1 science run are briefly discussed. The pathways include the…
With nearly a hundred gravitational wave detections, the origin of black hole mergers has become a key question. Here, we focus on understanding the typical galactic environment in which binary black hole mergers arise. To this end, we…
With about a hundred binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA, and with several hundreds expected in the current O4 run, GWs are revolutionizing our understanding of the universe. Some BBH sources are too faint to be…
The detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes with masses $\sim\,80-150\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ suggests that some proportion of black hole binary systems form hierarchically in dense astrophysical environments, as most stellar…