Related papers: Up-down instability of binary black holes in numer…
We consider a subset of the physical processes that determine the spin j = a/M of astrophysical black holes. These include: (1) Initial conditions. Recent models suggest that the collapse of supermassive stars are likely to produce black…
The dynamics of precessing binary black holes (BBHs) in the post-Newtonian regime has a strong timescale hierarchy: the orbital timescale is very short compared to the spin-precession timescale which, in turn, is much shorter than the…
Due to coherent superradiant amplification, massive bosonic fields can trigger an instability in spinning black holes, tapping their energy and angular momentum and forming macroscopic Bose-Einstein condensates around them. This phenomenon…
We review the dramatic progress in the simulations of compact objects and compact-object binaries that has taken place in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This includes simulations of the inspirals and violent mergers of…
Binary black-hole systems with spins aligned with the orbital angular momentum are of special interest, as studies indicate that this configuration is preferred in nature. If the spins of the two bodies differ, there can be a prominent…
Recent work paints a conflicting portrait of the distribution of black hole spins in merging binaries measured with gravitational waves. Some analyses find that a significant fraction of merging binaries contain at least one black hole with…
Gravitational waves radiated during binary black hole coalescence is a perfect probe for studying the characteristics of strong gravity. Advanced techniques for creating numerical relativity substitute models for eccentric binary black hole…
Numerical relativity is an essential tool in studying the coalescence of binary black holes (BBHs). It is still computationally prohibitive to cover the BBH parameter space exhaustively, making phenomenological fitting formulas for BBH…
Compact binary coalescences are the most promising sources of gravitational waves (GWs) for ground based detectors. Binary systems containing one or two spinning black holes are particularly interesting due to spin-orbit (and eventual…
The complex astrophysical processes leading to the formation of binary black holes and their eventual merger are imprinted on the spins of the individual black holes. We revisit the astrophysical distribution of those spins based on…
We present a public catalogue of numerical-relativity binary-black-hole simulations. The catalogue contains datasets from 80 distinct configurations of precessing binary-black-hole systems, with mass ratios up to $m_2/m_1 = 8$,…
We perform magnetohydrodynamic simulations of accreting, equal-mass binary black holes in full general relativity focusing on the impact of black hole spin on the dynamical formation and evolution of minidisks. We find that during the late…
Spin precession in merging black-hole binaries is a treasure trove for both astrophysics and fundamental physics. There are now well-established strategies to infer from gravitational-wave data whether at least one of the two black holes is…
We present results of numerical simulations of sequences of binary-single scattering events of black holes in dense stellar environments. The simulations cover a wide range of mass ratios from equal mass objects to 1000:10:10 solar masses…
The inspiral of supermassive black-hole binaries in gas-rich environment is driven by the presence of an accretion disc and viscous interactions tend to align the spin of the black holes with the orbital angular momentum of the disc. Recent…
Angular momentum transport in high-mass stars is commonly modeled by extrapolating the behavior of better-observed low-mass stars. According to the conventional picture, the cores of most black hole progenitors lose almost all of their…
We present the numerical code PRECESSION: a new open-source python module to study the dynamics of precessing black-hole binaries in the post-Newtonian regime. The code provides a comprehensive toolbox to (i) study the evolution of the…
As a first step towards understanding the angular momentum evolution history of black holes in merging black-hole/neutron-star binaries, we perform population synthesis calculations to track the distribution of accretion histories of…
Massive black hole (MBH) binary inspiral time scales are uncertain, and their spins are even more poorly constrained. Spin misalignment, along with unequal mass ratios and spin magnitudes, introduces asymmetry in the gravitational…
Gravitational waves from the coalescence of two black holes carry the signature of the strong field dynamics of binary black holes. In this work we have used numerical relativity simulations and post-Newtonian theory to investigate this…