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Related papers: Mass-gap Mergers in Active Galactic Nuclei

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Over the course of the third observing run of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, several gravitational-wave (GW) neutron star--black hole (NSBH) candidates have been announced. By assuming these candidates are real signals and of astrophysical…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-04-07 Jin-Ping Zhu , Shichao Wu , Ying Qin , Bing Zhang , He Gao , Zhoujian Cao

Galaxy mergers are capable of triggering both star formation and active galactic nuclei (AGN) and therefore may represent an important pathway in the co-evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes (SMBHs). However, correlated…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-11-29 R. Scott Barrows , Julia M. Comerford , Nadia L. Zakamska , Michael C. Cooper

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-11-20 Hiromichi Tagawa , Connar Rowan , János Takátsy , Lorenz Zwick , Kai Hendriks , Wen-Biao Han , Johan Samsing

The detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes with masses $\sim\,80-150\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ suggests that some proportion of black hole binary systems form hierarchically in dense astrophysical environments, as most stellar…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-08 Jordan Moncrieff , Fiona Panther

As a natural consequence of galaxy mergers, binary active galactic nuclei (AGNs) should be commonplace. Nevertheless, observational confirmations are rare, especially for binaries with separations less than ten kpc. Such a system may show…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-19 Hai Fu , Adam D. Myers , S. G. Djorgovski , Lin Yan

Black hole-neutron star (BHNS) binaries are expected to be among the leading sources of gravitational waves observable by ground-based detectors, and may be the progenitors of short-hard gamma ray bursts (SGRBs) as well. Here, we discuss…

Motivated by the recent detection of gravitational waves from the black hole binary merger GW150914, we study the dynamical evolution of black holes in galactic nuclei where massive star clusters reside. With masses of ~10^7M_Sun and sizes…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-11-15 Fabio Antonini , Frederic A. Rasio

Motivated by the increasing number of detections of merging black holes by LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA, black hole (BH) binary mergers in the discs of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is investigated as a possible merger channel. In this pathway, BH…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-07-12 Connar Rowan , Tjarda Boekholt , Bence Kocsis , Zoltán Haiman

GW190521 challenges our understanding of the late-stage evolution of massive stars and the effects of the pair-instability in particular. We discuss the possibility that stars at low or zero metallicity could retain most of their hydrogen…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2021-01-07 Eoin J. Farrell , Jose H. Groh , Raphael Hirschi , Laura Murphy , Etienne Kaiser , Sylvia Ekström , Cyril Georgy , Georges Meynet

Stars are likely embedded in the gas disks of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Theoretical models predict that in the inner regions of the disk these stars accrete rapidly, with fresh gas replenishing hydrogen in their cores faster than it is…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-04-27 Adam S. Jermyn , Alexander J. Dittmann , B. McKernan , K. E. S. Ford , Matteo Cantiello

Accretion discs around super-massive black holes (SMBH) not only power active galactic nuclei (AGNs), but also host single and binary embedded stellar-mass black holes (EBHs) that grow rapidly from gas accretion. The merger of these EBHs…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-04-12 Yi-Xian Chen , Douglas N. C. Lin

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

Hierarchical black hole (BH) mergers in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are unique among formation channels of binary black holes (BBHs) because they are likely associated with electromagnetic counterparts and can efficiently lead to the mass…

Accretion disks in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are promising sites for mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) detectable via gravitational waves (GWs). These environments facilitate both in-situ formation and dynamical capture of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-08 Hiromichi Tagawa , Zoltán Haiman , Shigeo S. Kimura , Hassen M. Yesuf , Hengxiao Guo

Multiple models have been suggested over the years to explain the structure and support of accretion disks around supermassive black holes, from the standard thin thermal-pressure-dominated $\alpha$-disk model to more recent models that…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-28 Yashvardhan Tomar , Philip F. Hopkins , Kyle Kremer

The latest detection of GW231123, a binary black hole (BH) merger with exceptionally large masses and high spins for the incoming components, has been suggested as a smoking gun for hierarchical formation. In this scenario, a first…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-02-06 Jakob Stegmann , Aleksandra Olejak , Selma E. de Mink

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

Stellar mass black holes (BHs) are expected to segregate and form a steep density cusp around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei. We follow the evolution of a multi-mass system of BHs and stars by numerically integrating…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Ryan M. O'Leary , Bence Kocsis , Abraham Loeb

We present a detailed study of the optical spectroscopic properties of 12 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with candidate low-mass black holes (BHs) selected by Kamizasa et al. through rapid X-ray variability. The high-quality, echellette…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-04-20 Luis Ho , Minjin Kim

In May 2023, the LIGO Livingston observatory detected the likely black hole-neutron star (BHNS) merger GW230529_181500. That event is expected to be the merger of a 2.5-4.5 $M_{\odot}$ primary with a secondary compact object of mass between…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-04-18 Tia Martineau , Francois Foucart , Mark Scheel , Matthew Duez , Lawrence Kidder , Harald Pfeiffer