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Current searches for gravitational waves from compact-binary objects are primarily designed to detect the dominant gravitational-wave mode and assume that the binary components have spins which are aligned with the orbital angular momentum.…
The coalescence of compact binaries containing neutron stars or black holes is one of the most promising signals for advanced ground-based laser interferometer gravitational-wave detectors, with the first direct detections expected over the…
We present a study of the gravitational waveforms from a series of spinning, equal-mass black hole binaries focusing on the harmonic content of the waves and the contribution of the individual harmonics to the signal-to-noise ratio. The…
Black holes in binaries with other compact objects can provide natural venues for indirect detection of axions or other ultralight fields. The superradiant instability associated with a rapidly spinning black hole leads to the creation of…
We calculate the first dynamical evolutions of merging black hole-neutron star binaries that construct the combined black hole-neutron star spacetime in a general relativistic framework. We treat the metric in the conformal flatness…
Super-Eddington accretion of neutron stars (NSs) has been suggested both observationally and theoretically. In this paper, we propose that NSs in close-orbit binary systems with companions of helium (He) stars, most of which systems form…
We perform the first fully nonlinear numerical simulations of black-hole binaries with mass ratios 100:1. Our technique for evolving such extreme mass ratios is based on the moving puncture approach with a new gauge condition and an optimal…
Tidal Disruption of stars by super massive central black holes from dense star clusters is modeled by high-accuracy direct $N$-body simulation. The time evolution of the stellar tidal disruption rate, the effect of tidal disruption on the…
Intensive monitoring of low-extinction windows towards the galactic bulge has provided in the last years valuable information for studies about the dynamics, kinematics and formation history of this part of the galaxy, mainly by…
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…
Observational evidence suggests that the majority of stars may have been born in stellar clusters or associations. Within these dense environments, dynamical interactions lead to high rates of close stellar encounters. A variety of recent…
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,…
Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) represent a unique class of objects capable of escaping the gravitational pull of the Milky Way due to extreme acceleration events, such as close encounters with the supermassive black hole at the Galactic center…
Most stellar remnants so far have been found in binary systems, where they interact with matter from their companions. Isolated neutron stars and black holes are difficult to find as they are dark, yet they are predicted to exist in our…
Pair-instability should prevent the direct formation of black holes above about $50M_\odot$ creating a pair-instability mass gap. Yet gravitational-wave observations have detected black holes in this mass range. These systems can be…
Tidal disruptions of stars by stellar-mass black holes are expected to occur frequently in dense star clusters. Building upon previous studies that performed hydrodynamic simulations of these encounters, we explore the formation and…
The observation of the shadows cast by the event horizon of black holes on the light emitted in its neighborhood is the target of current very-long-baseline-interferometric observations. When considering supermassive black holes, the light…
Study of gravitational-radiation induced merging rates of relativistic binary stars (double neutron stars; neutron star + black hole; double black holes) shows that the first-generation gravitational wave interferometers with an…
In this thesis we consider the data analysis problem of detecting gravitational waves emitted by inspiraling binary systems. Detection of gravitational waves will open a new window on the Universe enabling direct detection of systems such…
In recent years we have witnessed an explosion of photometric time-series data, collected for the purpose of finding a small number of rare sources, such as transiting extrasolar planets and gravitational microlenses. Once combed, these…