Related papers: Evolution of black hole mass and spin in collapsar…
I review the progress made on the physics of relativistic jets from black hole systems in the context of the analogy between AGN and microquasars that was proposed one decade ago. If the emerging empirical correlations between the…
Rotating massive stars with initial progenitor masses $M_{\rm prog} \sim$ 25 $M_{\odot}$ -- $\sim$140 $M_{\odot}$ can leave rapidly rotating black holes to become collapsars. The black holes and the surrounding accretion disks may develop…
Recent work on the engines of active galactic nuclei jets suggests their power depends strongly and perhaps counter-intuitively on black hole spin. We explore the consequences of this on the radio-loud population of active galactic nuclei…
Supermassive black holes (BH) accrete gas from their surroundings and coalesce with companions during galaxy mergers, and both processes change the BH mass and spin. By means of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies, either…
Supermassive stars, with masses greater than a million solar masses, are possible progenitors of supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei. Because of their short nuclear burning timescales, such objects can be formed only when matter is…
Since the seminal work of Penrose (1969) and Blandford & Znajek (1977), it has been realized that black hole spin may be an important energy source in astrophysics. The radio-loud/radio-quiet dichotomy in the AGN population is usually…
We present the results from a series of two-dimensional core-collapse simulations using a rotating progenitor star. We find that the convection in these simulations is less vigorous because a) rotation weakens the core bounce which seeds…
The relationships between supermassive black holes and the properties of their associated dark-matter halos imply that outflows from accreting black holes provide a feedback mechanism regulating galaxy formation. Accreting black holes with…
The collapse of massive rotating stellar cores and the associated accretion onto the newborn compact object is thought to power long gamma ray bursts (GRBs). The physical scale and dynamics of the accretion disk are initially set by the…
We study the long term evolution of a solar type star that is being disrupted by a super massive (10^6 solar mass) black hole. The evolution is followed from the disruption event, which turns the star into a long thin stream of gas, to the…
Short gamma ray bursts are presumably results of binary neutron star mergers, which lead to the formation of a stellar mass black hole, surrounded by a remnant matter. The strong magnetic fields help collimate jets of plasma, launched along…
As gravitational wave detections increase the number of observed compact binaries (consisting of neutron stars or blacks), we begin to probe the different conditions producing these binaries. Most studies of compact remnant formation focus…
In recent years, the formation and evolution of rapidly accreting supermassive stars has received significant attention in the hope of better understanding the origin of high redshift quasars. It is often taken for granted that once formed,…
Most gamma-ray bursts are made during the deaths of massive stars. Here the environmental circumstances, stellar evolutionary paths, and explosion physics that might produce the bursts are reviewed. Neither of the two leading models -…
We discuss the formation of stellar mass black holes via protoneutron star (PNS) collapse. In the absence of an earlier explosion, the PNS collapses to a black hole due to the continued mass accretion onto the PNS. We present an analysis of…
In the collapsar model for common gamma-ray bursts, the formation of a centrifugally supported disk occurs during the first $\sim$10 seconds following the collapse of the iron core in a massive star. This only occurs in a small fraction of…
We here propose a two-step model for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) associated with supernovae. In the first step, the core collapse of a star with mass $\ge 19M_\odot$ leads to a massive neutron star and a normal supernova, and subsequently…
Relativistic jets from a Kerr black hole (BH) following the core collapse of a massive star ("collapsar") is a leading model for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). However, the two key ingredients for a Blandford-Znajek powered jet $-$ rapid rotation…
Cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are probably powered by systems harboring a rotating black hole. These may result from hypernovae or black hole-neutron star coalescence. We identify short/long bursts with hyper- and suspended-accretion…
Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) and ultra-LGRBs (ULGRBs) originate from collapsars, in the center of which a newborn rotating stellar-mass black hole (BH) surrounded by a massive accretion disk may form. In the scenario of BH…