Related papers: Missing in Action: New Physics and the Black Hole …
The dynamical formation of stellar-mass black hole-black hole binaries has long been a promising source of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mass segregation, gravitational focusing, and…
In a binary system, the gravitational potential of the primary black hole may play an important role in enhancing the fallback accretion onto the lighter compact object newly formed in the second supernova explosion. As a result, the final…
At the end of its life, a very massive star is expected to collapse into a black hole. The recent detection of an 85 Msun black hole from the gravitational wave event GW 190521 appears to present a fundamental problem as to how such heavy…
Mass distribution of black holes identified through X-ray emission suggests a paucity of black holes in the mass range of 3 to 5 solar masses. Modified theories have been devised to explain this mass gap, and it is suggested that natal…
The recent observation of the GW230529 event indicates that black hole-neutron star binaries can contain low-mass black holes. Since lower mass systems are more favourable for tidal disruption, such events are promising candidates for…
Gravitational-wave detections are now probing the black hole (BH) mass distribution, including the predicted pair-instability mass gap. These data require robust quantitative predictions, which are challenging to obtain. The most massive BH…
The effects of rotation on low-metallicity stellar models are twofold: first, the models reach break-up during main sequence and may lose mass by mechanical process; second, strong internal mixing brings freshly synthesized elements towards…
Adaptive-Optics assisted SINFONI observations of the central regions of ten early-type galaxies are presented. Based primarily on the SINFONI kinematics, ten black hole masses occupying the high-mass regime of the M_BH-sigma relation are…
Supermassive black hole binary mergers generate a stochastic gravitational wave background detectable by pulsar timing arrays. While the amplitude of this background is subject to significant uncertainties, the frequency dependence is a…
At low redshift, massive black holes are found in the centers of almost all large elliptical galaxies, and also in many lower-mass systems. Their evolution is believed to be inextricably entangled with that of their host galaxies. On the…
Our understanding of the formation and evolution of binary black holes (BBHs) is significantly impacted by the recent discoveries made by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration. Of utmost importance is the detection of the most massive BBH system,…
On 2023 November 23 the two LIGO observatories both detected GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses $137^{+23}_{-18}\, M_\odot$ and $101^{+22}_{-50}\, M_\odot$ (90\% credible…
We present a new model for the formation of black holes in cosmological simulations, motivated by the first star formation. Black holes form from high density peaks of primordial gas, and grow via both gas accretion and mergers. Massive…
In current stellar evolutionary models, the occurrence of pair instability supernovae implies the lack of stellar black holes (BHs) with masses between about $[60, \, 120] \, \rm{M}_\odot$, resulting in the presence of an upper mass gap in…
We review the current state of dynamical modeling for galaxies in terms of being able to measure both the central black hole mass and stellar orbital structure. Both of these must be known adequately to measure either property. The current…
Supermassive black holes with masses of millions to billions of solar masses are commonly found in the centers of galaxies. Astronomers seek to image jet formation using radio interferometry, but still suffer from insufficient angular…
Shallow cores in bright, massive galaxies are commonly thought to be the result of scouring of stars by mergers of binary supermassive black holes. Past investigations have suggested correlations between the central black hole mass and the…
We analyze the confident binary black hole (BBH) detections from the third Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-3) with an alternative mass population model in order to capture features in the mass distribution beyond the Powerlaw +…
The \textit{memory burden} effect, the idea that the amount of information stored within a system contributes to its stabilization, is particularly relevant for systems with a large information storage capacity, such as black holes. In…
The recent detection of gravitational waves from a binary merger involving a potential low-mass gap black hole (LMBH) by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration motivates investigations into mechanisms beyond conventional stellar evolution…