English
Related papers

Related papers: AGN Disks Harden the Mass Distribution of Stellar-…

200 papers

Black hole mergers detectable with LIGO can occur in active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks. Here we parameterize the merger rates, the mass spectrum and the spin spectrum of black holes (BH) in AGN disks. The predicted merger rate spans $\sim…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-10-23 B. McKernan , K. E. S. Ford , J. Bellovary , N. W. C. Leigh , Z. Haiman , B. Kocsis , W. Lyra , M. -M. MacLow , B. Metzger , M. O'Dowd , S. Endlich , D. J. Rosen

The stellar mass binary black hole (sBBH) mergers presently detected by LIGO may originate wholly or in part from binary black hole mergers embedded in disks of gas around supermassive black holes. Determining the contribution of these…

Among the four black hole binary merger events detected by LIGO, six progenitor black holes have masses greater than 20\,$M_\odot$. The existence of such massive BHs calls for extreme metal-poor stars as the progenitors. An alternative…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-06-13 Shu-Xu Yi , K. S. Cheng , Ronald E. Taam

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…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-08 Jordan Moncrieff , Fiona Panther

Stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) embedded in active galactic nucleus (AGN) discs offer a distinct dynamical channel to produce black hole mergers detected in gravitational waves by LIGO/Virgo. To understand their orbital evolution…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-01-15 Rixin Li , Dong Lai

Binary black hole (BBH) mergers are the primary sources of gravitational wave (GW) events detected by LIGO/Virgo. Binary black holes embedded in the accretion discs of active galactic nuclei (AGN) are possible candidates for such GW events.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-07-22 W. Ishibashi , M. Gröbner

Multiple models have been suggested over the years to explain the structure and support of accretion disks around supermassive black holes, from the standard thin thermal-pressure-dominated $\alpha$-disk model to more recent models that…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-28 Yashvardhan Tomar , Philip F. Hopkins , Kyle Kremer

Active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks may be important sites of binary black hole (BBH) mergers. Here we show via numerical experiments with the high-accuracy, high precision code {\tt SpaceHub} that broken symmetry in dynamical encounters in…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-01-05 Yihan Wang , Barry McKernan , Saavik Ford , Rosalba Perna , Nathan W. C. Leigh , Mordecai-Mark Mac Low

The astrophysical origin of gravitational wave (GW) events is one of the most timely problems in the wake of the LIGO/Virgo discoveries. In active galactic nuclei (AGN), binaries form and evolve efficiently by dynamical interactions and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-08-19 Hiromichi Tagawa , Zoltan Haiman , Imre Bartos , Bence Kocsis

The origins of the stellar-mass black hole mergers discovered by LIGO/Virgo are still unknown. Here we show that, if migration traps develop in the \add{accretion} disks of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and promote the mergers of their…

As the number of gravitational-wave detections of black hole binaries grows, so does the diversity of proposed formation channels. The growing sample of systems with highly unequal masses, such as GW190814 with $m_1=23.2\,M_{\odot}$ and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-12-31 Jordan W. N. Moncrieff , Evgeni Grishin , Alessandro A. Trani , Fiona H. Panther , Olga Pietrosanti

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-01-27 Hiromichi Tagawa , Bence Kocsis , Zoltan Haiman , Imre Bartos , Kazuyuki Omukai , Johan Samsing

Binary black holes embedded within the accretion disks that fuel active galactic nuclei (AGN) are promising progenitors for the source of gravitational wave events detected by LIGO/VIRGO. Several recent studies have shown that when these…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-12-19 Josh Calcino , Adam M. Dempsey , Alexander J. Dittmann , Hui Li

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powered by the accretion of disks of gas onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Stars and stellar remnants orbiting the SMBH in the nuclear star cluster (NSC) will interact with the AGN disk. Orbiters…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-11-02 Gaia Fabj , Syeda S. Nasim , Freddy Caban , K. E. Saavik Ford , Barry McKernan , Jillian M. Bellovary

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, found direct evidence for double black hole binaries emitting gravitational waves. Galactic nuclei are expected to harbor the densest population of stellar-mass black holes. A…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-02-01 Imre Bartos , Bence Kocsis , Zoltán Haiman , Szabolcs Márka

The dense and dynamic environments within active galactic nuclei (AGN) accretion disks may serve as prolific birthplaces for binary black holes (BBHs) and one possible origin for some of the BBHs detected by gravitational-wave (GW)…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-10-31 Samson H. W. Leong , Justin Janquart , Aditya Kumar Sharma , Paul Martens , Parameswaran Ajith , Otto A. Hannuksela

The occurrence of dual active galactic nuclei (AGN) on scales of a few tens of kpc can be used to study merger-induced accretion on massive black holes (MBHs) and to derive clues on MBH mergers, using dual AGN as a parent population of…

The accretion disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) are promising environments for producing binary black hole (BBH) mergers, which have been detected via gravitational waves (GW) with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK). BBH mergers embedded in AGN…

The origin of merging binary black holes detected through gravitational waves remains a fundamental question in astrophysics. While stellar evolution imposes an upper mass limit of about 50 solar mass for black holes, some observed…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-10-03 LingQin Xue , Hiromichi Tagawa , Zoltan Haiman , Imre Bartos

The heaviest neutron stars and lightest black holes expected to be produced by stellar evolution leave the mass-range $2.2$ M$_{\odot}\lesssim m \lesssim 5$ M$_\odot$ largely unpopulated. Objects found in this so-called lower mass gap…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-10-07 Y. Yang , V. Gayathri , I. Bartos , Z. Haiman , M. Safarzadeh , H. Tagawa