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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

Compact objects are expected to exist in the accretion disks of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and in the presence of such a dense environment ($\sim 10^{14}\,{\rm cm^{-3}}$), they will form a new kind of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-04-21 Jian-Min Wang , Jun-Rong Liu , Luis C. Ho , Pu Du

The accretion disks that power active galactic nuclei (AGN) are thought to house populations of stars and compact objects; after forming binaries these compact objects may merge, begetting gravitational waves such as those detected by LIGO…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-05-12 Alexander J. Dittmann , Adam M. Dempsey , Hui Li

The origins of the stellar-mass black hole mergers discovered by LIGO/Virgo are still unknown. Here we show that, if migration traps develop in the \add{accretion} disks of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and promote the mergers of their…

Accretion disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) have been proposed as promising sites for producing both (stellar-mass) compact object mergers and extreme mass ratio inspirals. Along with the disk-assisted migration/evolution process,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-01-05 Zhen Pan , Huan Yang

With the hundreds of merging binary black hole (BH) signals expected to be detected by LIGO/Virgo, LISA and other instruments in the next few years, the modeling of astrophysical channels that lead to the formation of compact-object…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-05-15 Giacomo Fragione , Bence Kocsis

We explore the evolution of stellar mass black hole binaries (BHBs) which are formed in the self-gravitating disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Hardening due to three-body scattering and gaseous drag are effective mechanisms that reduce…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-01-03 Nicholas C. Stone , Brian D. Metzger , Zoltan Haiman

We investigate the distribution of massive black holes (MBHs) in the Virgo cluster. Observations suggest that AGN activity is widespread in massive galaxies (M>1e10 solar masses), while at lower galaxy masses star clusters are more…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Marta Volonteri , Francesco Haardt , Kayhan Gultekin

The heaviest neutron stars and lightest black holes expected to be produced by stellar evolution leave the mass-range $2.2$ M$_{\odot}\lesssim m \lesssim 5$ M$_\odot$ largely unpopulated. Objects found in this so-called lower mass gap…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-10-07 Y. Yang , V. Gayathri , I. Bartos , Z. Haiman , M. Safarzadeh , H. Tagawa

The stellar mass binary black hole (sBBH) mergers presently detected by LIGO may originate wholly or in part from binary black hole mergers embedded in disks of gas around supermassive black holes. Determining the contribution of these…

The majority of massive black holes (MBHs) likely hosted gas discs during their lifetimes. These could either be long-lived active galactic nuclei (AGN) discs, or shorter-lived discs formed following singular gas infall events, as was…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-04-12 Aleksey Generozov , Hagai B. Perets

Stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) embedded in active galactic nucleus (AGN) discs are possible progenitors of black-hole mergers detected in gravitational waves by LIGO/VIRGO. To better understand the hydrodynamical evolution of BBHs…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-09-21 Rixin Li , Dong Lai

The astrophysical origin of binary black hole (BBH) mergers remains uncertain, although many events have been observed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network. Such mergers are potentially originated in the vicinity of massive black holes (MBHs).…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-08-05 Shu-Cheng Yang , Wen-Biao Han , Hiromichi Tagawa , Song Li , Chen Zhang

The growing number of stellar-mass binary black hole mergers discovered by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are starting to constrain the binaries' origin and environment. However, we still lack sufficiently accurate modeling of binary…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-05-15 Y. Yang , I. Bartos , Z. Haiman , B. Kocsis , Z. Marka , N. C. Stone , S. Marka

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

Dynamics of stellar mass black holes (sBHs) embedded in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) could produce highly eccentric orbits near the central supermassive black hole, leading to repeated close encounters that emit gravitational waves in the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-04-29 Peter Lott , Christian Faulhaber , Joshua Brandt , Gongjie Li , Hareesh Bhaskar , Laura Cadonati

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

Galactic nuclei should contain a cluster of stars and compact objects in the vicinity of the central supermassive black hole due to stellar evolution, minor mergers and gravitational dynamical friction. By analogy with protoplanetary…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-30 B. McKernan , K. E. S. Ford , W. Lyra , H. B. Perets , L. M. Winter , T. Yaqoob

Observations by LIGO--Virgo of binary black hole mergers suggest a possible anti-correlation between black hole mass ratio ($q=m_{2}/m_{1}$) and the effective inspiral spin parameter $\chi_{\rm eff}$, the mass-weighted spin projection onto…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-06-22 B. McKernan , K. E. S. Ford , T. Callister , W. M. Farr , R. O'Shaughnessy , R. Smith , E. Thrane , A. Vajpeyi

Stellar-mass binary black hole (BBH) mergers occurring within the disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) are promising sources for gravitational waves detectable by the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA (LVK) interferometers. Some of these events have…