Related papers: AGN as Potential Factories for Eccentric Black Hol…
We investigate the connection between galaxy--galaxy mergers and enhanced black hole (BH) growth using the cosmological hydrodynamical EAGLE simulation. We do this via three methods of analysis, investigating: the merger fraction of AGN,…
The merger rate of stellar-mass black hole binaries (sBHBs) inferred by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) suggests the need for an efficient source of sBHB formation. Active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks…
In this Letter we revisit arguments suggesting that the Bardeen-Petterson effect can coalign the spins of a central supermassive black hole binary accreting from a circumbinary (or circumnuclear) gas disc. We improve on previous estimates…
Ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors have discovered about 200 compact object mergers. The astrophysical origins of these events are highly debated, and it is possible that at least a fraction of them originate from dynamical…
Pairs of galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powerful probes of merger-driven supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth as they can resolve individual AGN and trace mergers over a large range of physical separations. To exploit…
Powering the 10^62 erg nuclear outburst in the MS0735.6+7421 cluster central galaxy by accretion implies that its supermassive black hole (SMBH) grew by ~6x10^8 solar masses over the past 100 Myr. We place upper limits on the amount of cold…
We discuss the properties of stellar mass black hole (BH) mergers induced by tidal encounters with a massive BH at galactic centres or potentially in dense star clusters. The tidal disruption of stellar binaries by a massive BH is known to…
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…
In this {\it Letter} we calculate the fraction of highly eccentric binary black hole (BBH) mergers resulting from binary-single interactions. Using an $N$-body code that includes post-Newtonian correction terms, we show that $\gtrsim 1\%$…
Modeling the late inspiral and merger of supermassive black holes is central to understanding accretion processes and the conditions under which electromagnetic emission accompanies gravitational waves. We use fully general relativistic,…
We study the impact of environmental effects on the measurement of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) from gravitational wave (GW) observations of binary black hole mergers residing in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) near the central supermassive…
To describe a general bound binary black hole system, we need to consider orbital eccentricity and the misalignment of black holes' spin vectors with respect to the orbital angular momentum. While binary black holes produced through many…
The inspiral and merger of binary black holes will likely involve black holes with both unequal masses and arbitrary spins. The gravitational radiation emitted by these binaries will carry angular as well as linear momentum. A net flux of…
GW200115 is one of the first two confidently detected gravitational-wave events of neutron star-black hole mergers. An interesting property of this merger is that the black hole, if spinning rapidly, has its spin axis negatively aligned…
Repeated black-hole mergers in dense stellar clusters are a plausible mechanism to populate the predicted gap in black hole masses due to the pair-instability supernova process. These hierarchical mergers carry distinct spin characteristics…
The origin, environment, and evolution of stellar-mass black hole binaries are still a mystery. One of the proposed binary formation mechanisms is manifest in dynamical interactions between multiple black holes. A resulting framework of…
The Galactic Center hosts a rotating disk of young stars between 0.05 and 0.5 pc of Sgr A*. The ``S-stars'' at a distance $<0.04$ pc, however, are on eccentric orbits with nearly isotropically distributed inclinations. The dynamical origin…
We present an alternative formation scenario for the gravitational wave event GW190521, that can be explained as the merger of central black holes from two ultra-dwarf galaxies of stellar mass $\sim 10^5-10^6 ~M_\odot$, which had themselves…
Increased eccentricity of a black hole binary leads to reduced merger times. With n-body simulations and analytic approximations including the effects of general relativity (GR), we show that even a low mass companion orbiting a black hole…
The astrophysical origin of the over 90 compact binary mergers discovered by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories is an open question. While the unusual mass and spin of some of the discovered objects constrain progenitor…