Related papers: Missing in Action: New Physics and the Black Hole …
A population of binary black hole mergers has now been observed in gravitational waves by Advanced LIGO and Virgo. The masses of these black holes appear to show evidence for a pile-up between $30$--$45$ $M_\odot$ and a cut-off above $\sim…
Black holes formed in dense star clusters, where dynamical interactions are frequent, may have fundamentally different properties than those formed through isolated stellar evolution. Theoretical models for single star evolution predict a…
Binary black holes (BBHs) born from the evolution of Population III (Pop. III) stars are one of the main high-redshift targets for next-generation ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Their predicted initial mass function and…
Black hole - neutron star $(BH/NS)$ binaries are of interest in many ways: they are intrinsically multi-messenger systems, highly transient, radiate gravitational waves detectable by LIGO, and may produce $\gamma$-ray bursts. Although it…
Recent observations of globular clusters (GCs) provide evidence that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) may not be universal, suggesting specifically that the IMF grows increasingly top-heavy with decreasing metallicity and increasing…
The detection of GW190521 by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration has revealed the existence of black holes (BHs) in the pair-instability (PI) mass gap. Here, we investigate the formation of BHs in the PI mass gap via star -- star collisions in…
Black hole-neutron star mergers resulting in the disruption of the neutron star and the formation of an accretion disk and/or the ejection of unbound material are prime candidates for the joint detection of gravitational-wave and…
Pair-instability (PI) is expected to open a gap in the mass spectrum of black holes (BHs) between $\approx{}40-65$ M$_\odot$ and $\approx{}120$ M$_\odot$. The existence of the mass gap is currently being challenged by the detection of…
Very massive stars are radiation pressure dominated. Before running out of viable nuclear fuel, they can reach a thermodynamic state where electron-positron pair-production robs them of radiation support, triggering their collapse.…
The first LIGO-Virgo detections have confirmed the existence of massive black holes (BHs), with mass $30-40$ M$_\odot$. Such BHs might originate from massive metal-poor stars ($Z<0.3$ Z$_\odot$) or from gravitational instabilities in the…
The detection of gravitational waves from coalescing binary neutron stars represents another milestone in gravitational-wave astronomy. However, since LIGO is currently not as sensitive to the merger/ringdown part of the waveform, the…
If supermassive black holes in centres of galaxies form by merging of black-hole remnants of massive Population III stars, then there should be a few black holes of mass one or two orders of magnitude smaller than that of the central ones,…
The occurrence of pair-instability supernovae is predicted to prevent the formation of black holes with masses $\gtrsim 50 M_\odot$. Recent gravitational-wave detections in this mass range require an explanation beyond that of standard…
We analyze binary black hole (BBH) mergers from the latest Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-3) using a flexible, non-parametric framework to infer the underlying black hole mass distribution. Our model employs Gaussian Processes…
In this work, we use power-law cosmology to investigate the evolution of black holes within the context of metric $f(R)$ gravity satisfying the conditions provided by Starobinsky model. In our study, it is observed that presently…
The discovery of gravitational waves from compact objects coalescence opens a brand-new window to observe the universe. With more events being detected in the future, statistical examinations would be essential to better understand the…
The recent O4a release from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, which significantly increased the number of gravitational-wave (GW) detections, reveals features with potentially important astrophysical implications. One notable example is a…
Two of the dominant channels to produce the black-hole binary mergers observed by LIGO and Virgo are believed to be the isolated evolution of stellar binaries in the field and dynamical formation in star clusters. Their relative efficiency…
Gravitational wave observations of binary black holes have revealed unexpected structure in the black hole mass distribution. Previous studies of the mass distribution employ physically-motivated phenomenological models and infer the…
The origin of the black hole (BH) binary mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo is still uncertain, as are the boundaries of the stellar BH mass function. Stellar evolution models predict a dearth of BHs both at masses $\gtrsim 50$ M$_\odot$ and…