Related papers: Post-merger chirps from binary black holes as prob…
A generic black hole merger occurs through a restructuring of creases (sharp edges) on the event horizon. This process is studied for a black hole merger in the limit of infinite mass ratio, for which constructing the event horizon reduces…
Recently the possibility of detecting echoes of ringdown gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers was shown. The presence of echoes is expected if the black hole is surrounded by a mirror that reflects gravitational waves near the…
We use the gravitational wave signals from binary black hole merger events observed by LIGO and Virgo to reconstruct the underlying mass and spin distributions of the population of merging black holes. We reconstruct the population using…
A remarkable series of breakthroughs in numerical relativity modeling of black hole binary mergers has occurred over the past few years. This paper provides a general overview of these exciting developments, focusing on recent progress in…
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…
Modeling the late inspiral and merger of supermassive black holes is central to understanding accretion processes and the conditions under which electromagnetic emission accompanies gravitational waves. We use fully general relativistic,…
We study the gravitational wave (GW) frequency and chirp mass distribution of binary black hole (BBH) mergers assembled through three-body interactions in globular clusters (GCs), when GW emission at the 2.5 post-Newtonian (PN) level is…
Despite the rapidly growing number of stellar-mass binary black hole mergers discovered through gravitational waves, the origin of these binaries is still not known. In galactic centers, black holes can be brought to each others' proximity…
We consider the inspiral of black holes carrying U(1) charge that is not electromagnetic, but corresponds to some dark sector. In the weak-field, low-velocity regime, the components follow Keplerian orbits. We investigate how the orbital…
A black hole binary approaching merger undergoes changes in its inspiral rate as energy and angular momentum are lost from the orbits into the horizons. This effect strengthens as the black holes come closer. We use numerical relativity…
We review the state of the evidence for the existence and observational appearance of supermassive black hole binaries. Such objects are expected from standard hierarchical galaxy evolution to form after two galaxies, each containing a…
Because they are likely to accrete substantial amounts of interstellar gas, merging supermassive binary black holes are expected to be strong multimessenger sources, radiating gravitational waves, photons from thermal gas, and photons from…
Gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers provide a glimpse of gravitational dynamics in its most extreme observable regime, potentially enabling precision tests of general relativity (GR) and of the Kerr description of black…
One of the goals of gravitational-wave astronomy is to quantify the evolution of the compact binary merger rate with redshift. The redshift distribution of black hole mergers would offer considerable information about their evolutionary…
While the third LIGO--Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalog includes 90 signals, it is believed that ${\cal O}(10^5)$ binary black holes merge somewhere in the Universe every year. Although these signals are too weak to be detected…
When formed through dynamical interactions, stellar-mass binary black holes may retain eccentric orbits ($e>0.1$ at 10 Hz) detectable by ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. Eccentricity can therefore be used to differentiate…
We introduce a new technique to search for gravitational wave events from compact binary mergers that produce a clear signal only in a single gravitational wave detector, and marginal signals in other detectors. Such a situation can arise…
Precessing binary black-hole mergers can produce a net flux of circularly-polarized gravitational waves. This imbalance between left- and right-handed circularly polarized waves, quantified via the Stokes pseudo-scalar $V_{\rm GW}$,…
In this work, we uncover new features in the evolution of the deformations of the dynamical horizon geometry in a binary black hole merger scenario using numerical relativity. First, in the inspiral phase, owing to the deformations, the…
Since the first signal in 2015, the gravitational-wave detections of merging binary black holes (BBHs) by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations (LVC) have completely transformed our understanding of the lives and deaths of compact object…