Related papers: Spin-induced deformations and tests of binary blac…
According to the no-hair theorem, astrophysical black holes are uniquely described by their masses and spins. An observational test of the no-hair theorem can be performed by measuring at least three different multipole moments of the…
The two binary black-hole (BBH) coalescences detected by LIGO, GW150914 and GW151226, were relatively nearby sources, with a redshift of ~0.1. As the sensitivity of Advanced LIGO and Virgo increases in the next few years, they will…
Gravitational-wave black-hole spectroscopy provides a unique opportunity to test the strong-field regime of gravity and the nature of the final object formed in the aftermath of a merger. Here we investigate the prospects for black-hole…
While the Advanced LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave experiments now regularly observe binary black hole mergers, the evolutionary origin of these events remains a mystery. Analysis of the binary black hole spin distribution may shed light…
The discovery of frame-dragging effects in binary pulsar timing experiments requires a compact companion with sufficiently large spin. A pulsar orbiting a fast rotating black hole could provide an appropriate test system. In this paper we…
Binary black holes (BBHs) in eccentric orbits produce distinct modulations in gravitational waves (GWs); measuring orbital eccentricity provides evidence for dynamical binary formation channels. We analyze 57 GW events from the…
An accurate and precise measurement of the spins of individual merging black holes is required to understand their origin. While previous studies have indicated that most of the spin information comes from the inspiral part of the signal,…
Perturbed Kerr black holes emit gravitational radiation, which (for the practical purposes of gravitational-wave astronomy) consists of a superposition of damped sinusoids termed quasi-normal modes. The frequencies and time-constants of the…
The first direct detections of gravitational waves from merging binary black holes open a unique window into the binary black hole formation environment. One promising environmental signature is the angular distribution of the black hole…
We describe a new numerical algorithm for ray tracing in the external spacetimes of spinning compact objects characterized by arbitrary quadrupole moments. Such spacetimes describe non-Kerr vacuum solutions that can be used to test the…
We study whether binary black hole template banks can be used to search for the gravitational waves emitted by general binary coalescences. To recover binary signals from noisy data, matched-filtering techniques are typically required. This…
Binary black hole spin measurements from gravitational wave observations can reveal the binary's evolutionary history. In particular, the spin orientations of the component black holes within the orbital plane, $\phi_1$ and $\phi_2$, can be…
According to the no-hair theorem, an astrophysical black hole is uniquely described by only two quantities, the mass and the spin. In this series of papers, we investigate a framework for testing the no-hair theorem with observations of…
We present highly accurate, dimensionally-reduced gravitational waveforms for binary inspirals whose components have large spin-induced quadrupole moments. The spin-induced quadrupole of a body first appears in the phase of a waveform at…
Robustly measuring binary black hole spins via gravitational waves is key to understanding these systems' astrophysical origins, but remains challenging -- especially for high-mass systems, whose signals are short and dominated by the…
We investigate the energy of the gravitational wave from a binary black hole merger by the coalescence of two Kerr black holes with an orbital angular momentum. The coalescence is constructed to be consistent with particle absorption in the…
The recent advanced LIGO detections of gravitational waves from merging binary black holes enhance the prospect of exploring binary evolution via gravitational-wave observations of a population of compact-object binaries. In the face of…
The next generation of ground-based gravitational wave detectors may detect a few mergers of comparable-mass M\simeq 100-1000 Msun ("intermediate-mass'', or IMBH) spinning black holes. Black hole spin is known to have a significant impact…
Black holes in General Relativity are known as Kerr black holes and are characterized solely by two parameters, the mass $M$ and the spin $J$. All the higher multipole moments of the gravitational field are functions of these two…
The coalescence of compact binaries containing neutron stars or black holes is one of the most promising signals for advanced ground-based laser interferometer gravitational-wave detectors, with the first direct detections expected over the…