Related papers: Outliers in the LIGO Black Hole Mass Function from…
The origins of coalescing binary black holes (BBHs) detected by the advanced LIGO/Virgo are still under debate, and clues may be present in the joint mass-spin distribution of these merger events. Here we construct phenomenological models…
The binary black hole mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave detectors pose two major challenges: (i) how to produce these massive black holes from stellar processes; and (ii) how to bring them close enough to merge within the…
Data from the LIGO and Virgo detectors has confirmed that stellar-mass black holes can merge within a Hubble time, leaving behind massive remnant black holes. In some astrophysical environments such as globular clusters and AGN disks, it…
We study the population properties of merging binary black holes in the second LIGO--Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog assuming they were all formed dynamically in gravitationally bound clusters. Using a phenomenological population…
With about a hundred mergers of binary black holes (BBHs) detected via gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration, our understanding of the darkest objects in the Universe has taken unparalleled steps forward. While…
Prior to the detection of black holes (BHs) via the gravitational waves (GWs) they generate at merger, the presence of BHs was inferred in X-ray binaries, mostly via dynamical measurements, with masses in the range between $\sim…
Hierarchical triples are expected to be produced by the frequent binary-mediated interactions in the cores of globular clusters. In some of these triples, the tertiary companion can drive the inner binary to merger following large…
Black hole (BH) triples represent one of the astrophysical pathways for BH mergers in the Universe detectable by LIGO and VIRGO. We study the formation of BH triples via binary-binary encounters in dense clusters, showing that one-third of…
We reanalyse the LIGO-Virgo strain data of the 10 binary black hole mergers reported to date and compute the likelihood function in terms of chirp mass, mass ratio and effective spin. We discuss the strong degeneracy between mass ratio and…
The recent discovery of GW150914, the binary black hole merger detected by Advanced LIGO, has the potential to revolutionize observational astrophysics. But to fully utilize this new window into the universe, we must compare these new…
In the standard picture of stellar evolution, pair-instability -- the energy loss in stellar cores due to electron-positron pair production -- is predicted to prevent the collapse of massive stars into black holes with mass in the range…
The detection of gravitational-wave events revealed that there are numerous populations of black hole (BH) binaries that can merge within the age of the Universe. Although several formation channels of such binaries are known, considerable…
We infer the origin channels of hierarchical mergers observed in the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) O1, O2, and O3 runs using a hierarchical Bayesian analysis under a parametric population model. By assuming the active galactic nucleus (AGN) disk…
Recently, the LIGO-Virgo collaborations have reported the coalescence of a binary involving a black hole and a low-mass gap object (LMGO) with mass in the range $\sim2.5-5M_\odot$. Such detections, challenge our understanding of the black…
The dynamical formation of black hole binaries in globular clusters that merge due to gravitational waves occurs more frequently in higher stellar density. Meanwhile, the probability to form intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) also…
The merging black-hole (BH) binaries GW190412, GW190814 and GW190521 from the third LIGO/VIRGO observing run exhibit some extraordinary properties, including highly asymmetric masses, significant spin, and component mass in the "mass gap".…
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…
The possible formation mechanisms of massive close binary black holes (BHs) that can merge in the Hubble time to produce powerful gravitational wave bursts detected during advanced LIGO O1 and O2 science runs include the evolution from…
We present results on the evolution of the intrinsic scatter of black hole masses considering different implementations of a model in which black holes only grow via mergers. We demonstrate how merger driven growth affects the correlations…
We examine the intrinsic scatter in the correlation between black hole masses and their host bulge masses, and find that it cannot be accounted for by mergers alone. A simple merger scenario of small galaxies leads to a proportionality…