Related papers: Considerations for the Observability of Kinematica…
If the activity of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is predominantly induced by major galaxy mergers, then a significant fraction of AGNs should harbor binary massive black holes in their centers. We study the mass function of binary massive…
Pulsar timing arrays are sensitive to gravitational waves from supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries at orbital separations of << 1pc. There is currently an observational paucity of such systems, although they are central figures in…
Stellar-mass binary black holes (BBH) may form, evolve, and merge within the dense environments of active galactic nuclei (AGN) disks, thereby contributing to the BBH population detected by gravitational wave (GW) observatories. Mergers…
Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) at millimeter (mm) wavelengths is being employed to resolve event-horizon scale structure of the environment surrounding the Milky-Way black hole, at an angular resolution of a few tens of…
Variable active galactic nuclei showing periodic light curves have been proposed as massive black hole binary (MBHB) candidates. In such scenarios the periodicity can be due to relativistic Doppler-boosting of the emitted light. This…
When binary black holes are embedded in a gaseous environment, a rotating disk surrounding them, the so-called circumbinary disk, will be formed. The binary exerts a gravitational torque on the circumbinary disk and thereby the orbital…
Current searches for gravitational waves (GWs) from black hole binaries using the LIGO and Virgo observatories are limited to analytical models for systems with black hole spins aligned (or anti-aligned) with the orbital angular momentum of…
We analyze the dynamical evolution of binary stars that interact with a static background of single stars in the environment of a massive black hole (MBH). All stars are considered to be single mass, Newtonian point particles. We follow the…
The black hole (BH) binaries in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are expected to form mainly through scattering encounters in the ambient gaseous medium. Recent simulations, including our own, have confirmed this formation pathway is highly…
We present analysis of NuSTAR X-ray observations of three AGN that were identified as candidate subparsec binary supermassive black hole (SMBH) systems in the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey based on apparent periodicity in their…
Black holes in binaries with other compact objects can provide natural venues for indirect detection of axions or other ultralight fields. The superradiant instability associated with a rapidly spinning black hole leads to the creation of…
Third generation gravitational wave (GW) detectors are expected to detect millions of binary black hole (BBH) mergers during their operation period. A small fraction of them ($\sim 1\%$) will be strongly lensed by intervening galaxies and…
The observation of multiple images from a strongly lensed gravitational wave (GW) source provides the observer with a stereoscopic view of the source. This allows for a measure of its relative proper motion by comparing the induced GW…
Hierarchical structure formation inevitably leads to the formation of supermassive binary black holes (BBHs) with a sub-parsec separation in galactic nuclei. However, to date there has been no unambiguous detection of such systems. In an…
Even though the existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs, black holes with masses ranging between $10^{2-4}\,M_{\odot}$) has not yet been corroborated observationally, these objects are of high interest for astrophysics. Our…
Some Type-1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are showing extremely asymmetric Balmer lines with the broad peak redshifted or blueshifted by thousands of km/s. These AGNs may be good candidates for supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs). The…
Periodic variability in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is a promising method for studying sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), which are a challenging detection target. While extensive searches have been made in the optical,…
Gravitational wave (GW) detections of binary black holes (BBHs) have shown evidence for a dearth of component black holes with masses above $\sim50M_\odot$. This is consistent with expectations of a mass gap due to the existence of…
One of the proposed explanations for the broad, double-peaked Balmer emission lines observed in the spectra of some active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is that they are associated with sub-parsec supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. Here, we…
The recent discovery of gravitational waves (GWs) from stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) provided direct evidence of the existence of these systems. BBH lenses would have gravitational microlensing signatures that are distinct from…