Related papers: Wide nutation: binary black-hole spins repeatedly …
Supermassive black hole binaries are likely to accrete interstellar gas through a circumbinary disk. Shortly before merger, the inner portions of this circumbinary disk are subject to general relativistic effects. To study this regime, we…
Accretion discs are common in binary systems, and they are often found to be misaligned with respect to the binary orbit. The gravitational torque from a companion induces nodal precession in misaligned disc orbits. We calculate whether…
We review recent works on the dynamics of circumbinary accretion, including time variability, angular momentum transfer between the disk and the binary, and the secular evolution of accreting binaries. These dynamics can impact stellar…
We compare waveforms and orbital dynamics from the first long-term, fully non-linear, numerical simulations of a generic black-hole binary configuration with post-Newtonian predictions. The binary has mass ratio q~0.8 with arbitrarily…
We explore the hardening of a massive black hole binary embedded in a circum-binary gas disc when the binary and the gas are coplanar and the gas is counter-rotating. The secondary black hole, revolving in the direction opposite to the gas,…
Recent calculations of the recoil velocity in black-hole binary mergers have found kick velocities of $\approx2500 $km/s for equal-mass binaries with anti-aligned initial spins in the orbital plane. In general the dynamics of spinning black…
A significant number of stellar-mass black-hole (BH) binaries may merge in galactic nuclei or in the surrounding gas disks. With purposed space-borne gravitational-wave observatories, we may use such a binary as a signal carrier to probe…
We study the evolution of the orientation of the orbital plane of massive black hole binaries (BHBs) in rotating stellar systems in which the total angular momentum of the stellar cusp is misaligned with respect to that of the binary. We…
The spins of ten stellar black holes have been measured using the continuum-fitting method. These black holes are located in two distinct classes of X-ray binary systems, one that is persistently X-ray bright and another that is transient.…
We study identical mass black hole binaries with spins perpendicular to the binary's orbital plane. These binaries have individual spins ranging from $s/m^2=-0.90$ to 0.90, ($s_1 = s_2$ in all cases) which is near the limit possible with…
The spectroscopic study of black hole quasinormal modes in gravitational-wave ringdown observations is hindered by our ignorance of which modes should dominate astrophysical signals for different binary configurations, limiting tests of…
We perform SPH simulations to study precession and changes in alignment between the circumprimary disc and the binary orbit in misaligned binary systems. We find that the precession process can be described by the rigid-disc approximation,…
Motivated by the search for gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes, we investigate the gravitational radiation field of point particles with spins within the framework of the multipolar-post-Newtonian wave generation formalism.…
We study neutrino spin oscillations in background matter under the influence of strong electromagnetic and gravitational fields. The neutrino spin evolution is treated quasiclassically. We derive the effective Hamiltonian governing spin…
Coalescing massive black hole binaries are powerful emitters of gravitational waves, in the LISA sensitivity range for masses M_BH ~ 10^{4-7} M_sun. According to hierarchical galaxy merger models, binary black holes should form frequently,…
The coalescence of two black holes generates gravitational waves that carry detailed information about the properties of those black holes and their binary configuration. The final coalescence cycles are in the form of a {\it ringdown}: a…
Very large mass ratio binary black hole systems are of interest both as a clean limit of the two-body problem in general relativity, as well as for their importance as sources of low-frequency gravitational waves. At lowest order, the…
Gravitational waves radiated during binary black hole coalescence is a perfect probe for studying the characteristics of strong gravity. Advanced techniques for creating numerical relativity substitute models for eccentric binary black hole…
The ringdown phase of a binary black-hole merger provides a clean probe of strong-field gravity, as it can be modeled with minimal assumptions. The quasi-normal-mode frequencies encode the mass and spin of the Kerr black-hole remnant, while…
Rotating axisymmetric objects amplify incoming waves by superradiant scattering. When enclosed in a cavity, the repeated interaction of a confined field with the object may trigger superradiant instabilities. Rotating binaries are…