Related papers: Gravitational Waves as a Probe of Globular Cluster…
Mergers of gas-rich galaxies lead to gravitationally driven increases in gas pressure that can trigger intense bursts of star and cluster formation. Although star formation itself is clustered, most newborn stellar aggregates are unbound…
Pulsar timing experiments are reaching sufficient sensitivity to detect a postulated stochastic gravitational wave background generated by merging supermassive black hole systems in the cores of galaxies. We describe the techniques behind…
Gravitational waves (GWs) are fluctuations in the fabric of spacetime predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Using a collection of millisecond pulsars as high-precision clocks, the nanohertz band of this radiation is likely…
One proposed black hole formation channel involves hierarchical mergers, where black holes form through repeated binary mergers. Previous studies have shown that such black holes follow a near-universal spin distribution centered around…
The predicted rate of binary black hole mergers from galactic fields can vary over several orders of magnitude and is extremely sensitive to the assumptions of stellar evolution. But in dense stellar environments such as globular clusters,…
Detection of gravitational-wave (GW) sources enables the characterisation of binary compact objects and of their in-spiral. However, other dissipative processes can affect the in-spiral. Here we show that the in-spiral of compact objects…
Merging compact binaries are the most viable and best studied candidates for gravitational wave (GW) detection by the fully operational network of ground-based observatories. In anticipation of the first detections, the expected…
We use a self-consistent Monte Carlo treatment of stellar dynamics to investigate black hole binaries that are dynamically ejected from globular clusters to determine if they will be gravitational wave sources. We find that many of the…
After Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) have announced the evidence for a low-frequency gravitational wave background (GWB), the continuous waves (CWs) are the next anticipated gravitational wave (GW) signals. In this work, we model CW sources…
When binary black holes form in the field, it is expected that their orbits typically circularize before coalescence. In galactic nuclei and globular clusters, binary black holes can form dynamically. Recent results suggest that…
The merger rate of black hole binaries inferred from the detections in the first Advanced LIGO science run, implies that a stochastic background produced by a cosmological population of mergers will likely mask the primordial…
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…
Several astrophysical scenarios have been proposed to explain the origin of the population of binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected in gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration. Among them, BBH mergers assembled…
Binary neutron-star mergers will predominantly produce black-hole remnants of mass $\sim 3-4\,M_{\odot}$, thus populating the putative \emph{low mass gap} between neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes. If these low-mass black holes are…
The orbits of two black holes which are initially unbound can be transformed into bound orbits by emitting gravitational waves during close encounters in a star cluster, which is called a gravitational wave (GW) capture. The effects of spin…
During its first 4 months of taking data, Advanced LIGO has detected gravitational waves from two binary black hole mergers, GW150914 and GW151226, along with the statistically less significant binary black hole merger candidate LVT151012.…
The merger of two black holes is one of the most extraordinary events in the natural world. Made of pure gravity, the holes combine to form a single hole, emitting a strong burst of gravitational radiation. Ground-based detectors are…
The vast majority of gravitational-wave signals from stellar-mass compact binary mergers are too weak to be individually detected with present-day instruments and instead contribute to a faint, persistent background. This astrophysical…
We present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1$\mathrm{M}_\odot$ during the first and second observing runs of the Advanced gravitational-wave detector network.…
According to the hypothesis that AGNs are massive black holes and the mass which feeds them is made of stars belonging to globular clusters frictionally decayed and tidally destroyed by the field of the central object, it is possible to…