Related papers: Astrophysics of stellar black holes
The discovery of the astrophysical events GW150926 and GW151226 has experimentally confirmed the existence of gravitational waves (GW) and has demonstrated the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This finding marks the…
Binary black holes (BBHs) are one of the endpoints of isolated binary evolution, and their mergers a leading channel for gravitational wave events. Here, using the evolutionary code \textsc{StarTrack}, we study the statistical properties of…
We present a search for merging compact binary gravitational-wave sources that produce a signal appearing solely or primarily in a single detector. Past analyses have heavily relied on coincidence between multiple detectors to reduce…
On September 14, 2015, the newly upgraded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) recorded a loud gravitational-wave (GW) signal, emitted a billion light-years away by a coalescing binary of two stellar-mass black holes.…
We investigate the dynamics of stellar-mass black holes (BH) in star clusters focusing on the dynamical formation of BH-BH binaries, which are very important sources of gravitational waves (GW). We examine the properties of these BH-BH…
We consider the possibility that the black-hole (BH) binary detected by LIGO may be a signature of dark matter. Interestingly enough, there remains a window for masses $20\,M_\odot \lesssim M_{\rm bh} \lesssim 100\, M_\odot$ where…
The astrophysical origin of gravitational wave (GW) transients is a timely open question in the wake of discoveries by LIGO/Virgo. In active galactic nuclei (AGNs), binaries form and evolve efficiently by interaction with a dense population…
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration recently reported an exceptional gravitational-wave event, GW231123. This gravitational-wave signal was assumed to be generated from the merger of a binary black hole system, with source frame masses of…
Binary black holes can form efficiently in dense young stellar clusters, such as the progenitors of globular clusters, via a combination of gravitational segregation and cluster evaporation. We use simple analytic arguments supported by…
The dynamical formation of stellar-mass black hole-black hole binaries has long been a promising source of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mass segregation, gravitational focusing, and…
The LIGO/Virgo collaboration has recently announced the detection of a heavy binary black hole merger, with component masses that cannot be explained by standard stellar structure theory. In this letter we propose several explanations based…
Of the three main types of binaries detectable through ground-based gravitational wave observations, black hole-neutron star (BHNS) mergers remain the most elusive. While candidates BHNS exist in the triggers released during the third…
The binary black hole mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave detectors pose two major challenges: (i) how to produce these massive black holes from stellar processes; and (ii) how to bring them close enough to merge within the…
Black hole (BH) triples represent one of the astrophysical pathways for BH mergers in the Universe detectable by LIGO and VIRGO. We study the formation of BH triples via binary-binary encounters in dense clusters, showing that one-third of…
Stellar mass black holes (BHs) are expected to segregate and form a steep density cusp around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei. We follow the evolution of a multi-mass system of BHs and stars by numerically integrating…
The new era of gravitational wave astronomy truly began on September 14, 2015 with the detection of GW150914, the sensational first direct observation of gravitational waves from the inspiral and merger of two black holes by the two…
Primordial Black Holes (PBH) can form in the early universe and might comprise a significant fraction of the dark matter. Interestingly, they are accompanied by the generation of Gravitational Wave (GW) signals and they could contribute to…
The promise by the LIGO/Virgo/Kagra (LVK) collaboration to detect black hole--neutron star (BH--NS) mergers via gravitational wave (GW) emission has recently been fulfilled with the detection of GW200105 and GW200115. Mergers of BH--NS…
The era of gravitational wave astronomy began in 2015 with the observation of the signal from the merger of two black holes by the LIGO detectors; by 2021, almost 100 more such transient signals from coalescences of compact binaries of…
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…