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Recently, advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO) has detected black hole (BH) merger events, most of which are sourced by BHs more massive than $30~M_\odot$. Especially, the observation of GW170104 suggests…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-04-11 Hiromichi Tagawa , Masayuki Umemura

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powered by accretion disks onto supermassive black holes in the the centers of galaxies. AGN are believed to play important roles in the evolution of both supermassive black holes and their host galaxies…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-06-11 K. E. Saavik Ford , Barry McKernan

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

We study the dynamical evolution of the stellar mass binary black holes (BBHs) in a galactic nucleus that contains a massive black hole (MBH). For a comprehensive study of their merging events, we consider simultaneously the non-resonant…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-08-17 Fupeng Zhang , Lijing Shao , Weishan Zhu

The masses, rates, and spins of merging stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) detected by aLIGO and Virgo provide challenges to traditional BBH formation and merger scenarios. An active galactic nucleus (AGN) disk provides a promising…

Motivated by the recent detection of gravitational waves from the black hole binary merger GW150914, we study the dynamical evolution of black holes in galactic nuclei where massive star clusters reside. With masses of ~10^7M_Sun and sizes…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-11-15 Fabio Antonini , Frederic A. Rasio

The dense and gaseous environments of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can catalyze repeated mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs), potentially explaining the high-mass tail of binary black hole (BBH) mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-08-22 Maria Paola Vaccaro

Advanced LIGO achieved the first detection of the gravitational wave, which was from a merging binary black hole (BBH). In the near future, more merger events will be observed, and the mass distribution of them will become available. The…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-12-20 Michiko Fujii , Ataru Tanikawa , Junichiro Makino

The accretion disks that power active galactic nuclei (AGN) are thought to house populations of stars and compact objects; after forming binaries these compact objects may merge, begetting gravitational waves such as those detected by LIGO…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-05-12 Alexander J. Dittmann , Adam M. Dempsey , Hui Li

GW231123, the most massive binary black hole (BBH) merger detected by LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA, highlights the need to understand the origins of massive, high-spin stellar black holes (BHs). Dense star clusters provide natural environments for…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-11-12 Fulya Kıroğlu , Kyle Kremer , Frederic A. Rasio

The recent advanced LIGO/Virgo detections of gravitational waves (GWs) from stellar binary black hole (BBH) mergers, in particular GW190521, which is potentially associated with a quasar, have stimulated renewed interest in active galactic…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-08-11 Jian-Min Wang , Jun-Rong Liu , Luis C. Ho , Yan-Rong Li , Pu Du

Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Simon Portegies Zwart , Stephen McMillan

Stellar mass black holes (BHs) are expected to segregate and form a steep density cusp around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei. We follow the evolution of a multi-mass system of BHs and stars by numerically integrating…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Ryan M. O'Leary , Bence Kocsis , Abraham Loeb

With the hundreds of merging binary black hole (BH) signals expected to be detected by LIGO/Virgo, LISA and other instruments in the next few years, the modeling of astrophysical channels that lead to the formation of compact-object…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-05-15 Giacomo Fragione , Bence Kocsis

The majority of gravitational wave events detected by the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA Collaboration originate from binary black hole (BBH) mergers, for which no confirmed electromagnetic counterparts have been identified to date. However, if…

The formation environments of merging binary black holes remain uncertain. While hierarchical assembly in dense stellar clusters has been widely explored as an explanation for black holes exceeding the stellar-mass limit, growth through gas…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-05-12 I. Bartos , Z. Haiman

We derive the probability for a newly formed binary black hole (BBH) to undergo an eccentric gravitational wave (GW) merger during binary-single interactions inside a stellar cluster. By integrating over the hardening interactions such a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-05-30 Johan Samsing

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 observed binary black hole (BBH) mergers indicate a large Galactic progenitor population continuously evolving from large orbital separations and low gravitational wave (GW) frequencies to the final merger phase. We investigate the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-04-19 Xiao Fang , Todd A. Thompson , Christopher M. Hirata

Several binary black holes (BBHs) have been observed using gravitational wave detectors. For the formation mechanism of BBHs, two main mechanisms, isolated binary evolution and dynamical formation in dense star clusters, have been…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-06-03 Jun Kumamoto , Michiko S. Fujii , Ataru Tanikawa