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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

The heaviest black holes discovered through gravitational waves have masses that are difficult to explain with current standard stellar models. This discrepancy may be due to a series of hierarchical mergers, where the observed black holes…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-07-25 O. Barrera , I. Bartos

Detecting orbital eccentricity in a stellar-mass black-hole merger would point to a non-isolated formation channel. Eccentric binaries can form in dense stellar environments such as globular clusters or active galactic nuclei, or from…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-01-05 Isobel Romero-Shaw , Jakob Stegmann , Hiromichi Tagawa , Davide Gerosa , Johan Samsing , Nihar Gupte , Stephen R. Green

It remains an open question whether the binary black hole mergers observed with gravitational-wave detectors originate from the evolution of isolated massive binary stars or were dynamically driven by perturbations from the environment.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-01-23 Jakob Stegmann , Davide Gerosa , Isobel Romero-Shaw , Giulia Fumagalli , Hiromichi Tagawa , Lorenz Zwick

LIGO/Virgo has detected several binary black hole (BBH) merger events that may have originated in the accretion disks of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). These events require individual black hole masses that fall within the pair instability…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-12-07 Adam M. Dempsey , Hui Li , Bhupendra Mishra , Shengtai Li

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

Galactic nuclei are promising sites for stellar origin black hole (BH) mergers, as part of merger hierarchies in deep potential wells. We show that binary black hole (BBH) merger rates in active galactic nuclei (AGN) should always exceed…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-12-07 K. E. Saavik Ford , Barry McKernan

We present a model that explains some extreme variability phenomena observed in active galactic nuclei (AGN). In this model, an orbiting companion interacts with the accretion disk surrounding the central supermassive black hole (SMBH).…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-06-26 Sierra A. Dodd , Xiaoshan Huang , Shane W. Davis , Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz

Ground-based gravitational wave (GW) observatories have detected approximately 200 binary black hole (BH) mergers. The astrophysical origin of these events are debated, with evidence suggesting that at least a subset originated from dynamic…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-30 Hiromichi Tagawa , Zoltán Haiman , Bence Kocsis

The majority of gravitational wave (GW) events detected so far by LIGO/Virgo originate from binary black hole (BBH) mergers. Among the different binary evolution paths, the merger of BBHs in accretion discs of active galactic nuclei (AGNs)…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-07-01 Matthias Gröbner , Wako Ishibashi , Shubhanshu Tiwari , Maria Haney , Philippe Jetzer

Binary black hole (BBH) mergers, particularly those with component masses in the pair-instability gap, may be produced by hierarchical mergers in the disks surrounding Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). While the interaction of an embedded BBH…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-04-13 Ya-Ping Li , Adam M. Dempsey , Hui Li , Shengtai Li , Jiaru Li

We explore the possibility that GW190412, a binary black hole merger with a non-equal-mass ratio and significantly spinning primary, was formed through repeated black hole mergers in a dense super star cluster. Using a combination of…

Orbital eccentricity in gravitational-wave signals from merging compact object binaries is a powerful indicator of their formation channel. Several binary black hole mergers and a neutron star--black hole merger have been reported to…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-05-19 Teagan A. Clarke , Isobel M. Romero-Shaw , Charlie Hoy , Jakob Stegmann , Paul D. Lasky , Eric Thrane

We apply the theory of nonlinear resonance capture to the problem of a black hole binary (BHB) orbiting a supermassive black hole (SMBH) while embedded in the accretion disk of an active galactic nucleus (AGN). If successful, resonance…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-04-14 Diego J. Muñoz , Nicholas C. Stone , Cristobal Petrovich , Frederic A. Rasio

GW231123 is an exceptionally massive binary black hole (BBH) merger with unusually high component spins. Such extreme properties challenge conventional stellar evolution models predicting a black hole mass gap due to pair-instability…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-02-03 Yin-Jie Li , Shao-Peng Tang , Ling-Qin Xue , Yi-Zhong Fan

Merging black holes (BH) are expected to produce remnants with large dimensionless spin parameters ($a_{\rm spin} \sim 0.7$). However, gravitational wave (GW) observations with LIGO/Virgo suggest that merging BH are consistent with modestly…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-09-28 B. McKernan , K. E. S. Ford

GW231123 represents the most massive binary-black-hole merger detected to date, lying firmly within, or even above, the pair-instability mass gap. The component spins are both exceptionally high ($a_1 = 0.90^{+0.10}_{-0.19}$, $a_2 =…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-12-16 Imre Bartos , Zoltan Haiman

Binary black holes embedded within the accretion disks that fuel active galactic nuclei (AGN) are promising progenitors for the source of gravitational wave events detected by LIGO/VIRGO. Several recent studies have shown that when these…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-12-19 Josh Calcino , Adam M. Dempsey , Alexander J. Dittmann , Hui Li

Despite the increasing number of Gravitational Wave (GW) detections, the astrophysical origin of Binary Black Hole (BBH) mergers remains elusive. A promising formation channel for BBHs is inside accretion discs around supermassive black…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-10-25 Niccolò Veronesi , Elena Maria Rossi , Sjoert van Velzen

Recent studies have shown that AGN discs can host sources of gravitational waves. Compact binaries can form and merge in AGN discs through their interactions with the gas and other compact objects in the disc. It is also possible for the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-08-22 Hareesh Gautham Bhaskar , Gongjie Li , Doug Lin