Related papers: Exploring Features in the Binary Black Hole Popula…
Measuring the distribution of spin tilts-the angles between the spin vectors and the binary orbital angular momentum-in stellar-mass binary black holes detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA would provide valuable insight into their astrophysical…
The recent O4a release from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, which significantly increased the number of gravitational-wave (GW) detections, reveals features with potentially important astrophysical implications. One notable example is a…
We detail the population properties of merging compact objects using 158 mergers from the cumulative Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog 4.0, which includes three types of binary mergers: binary neutron star, neutron star--black hole…
The origins of coalescing binary black holes (BBHs) detected by the advanced LIGO/Virgo are still under debate, and clues may be present in the joint mass-spin distribution of these merger events. Here we construct phenomenological models…
The spins of black holes in merging binaries can reveal information related to the formation and evolution of these systems through their gravitational wave emission. Combining events to infer the astrophysical distribution of black hole…
The relative spin orientations of black holes (BHs) in binaries encode their evolutionary history: BHs assembled dynamically should have isotropically distributed spins, while spins of the BHs originating in the field should be aligned with…
There is growing evidence from gravitational-wave observations that some merging black holes are created from previous mergers. Using the prediction that these hierarchically merged black holes have dimensionless spin magnitudes of $\chi…
Despite a decade's worth of gravitational wave observation, the origin of the binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected by the LIGO-VIRGO-Kagra (LVK) collaboration remains an open question. Towards assessing the feasibility and prevalence of…
Stellar evolution theories predict a gap in the black hole birth mass spectrum as the result of pair instability processes in the cores of massive stars.This gap, however, is not seen in the binary black hole masses inferred from…
The formation history of binary black hole systems is imprinted on the distribution of their masses, spins, and eccentricity. While much has been learned studying these parameters in turn, recent studies have explored the joint distribution…
The detection of gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes raises questions regarding the origin of binaries. There are several models in the literature involving binary evolution in both the field and clusters. We compare the…
In binary black-hole mergers from isolated binary-star evolution, both black holes are from progenitor stars that have lost their hydrogen-rich envelopes by binary mass transfer. Envelope stripping is known to affect the pre-supernova core…
Repeated black-hole mergers in dense stellar clusters are a plausible mechanism to populate the predicted gap in black hole masses due to the pair-instability supernova process. These hierarchical mergers carry distinct spin characteristics…
Observations of gravitational waves (GWs) from merging compact binaries have become a regular occurrence. The continued advancement of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration detectors have now produced a catalog of over 90 such mergers,…
Analyses of the growing catalog of binary black hole (BBH) mergers observed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detectors are beginning to resolve features in their population-level mass, spin, and redshift distributions, revealing imprints of the…
When modeling the population of merging binary black holes, analyses have generally focused on characterizing the distribution of primary (i.e. more massive) black holes in the binary, while simplistic prescriptions are used for the…
The population of black holes observed via gravitational waves currently covers the local universe up to a redshift $z\lesssim 1$, for the most massive merging binaries, or $z\lesssim 0.25$ for low-mass BH binaries (BBH). Evolution of the…
Properties of the to-date-observed binary black hole (BBH) merger events suggest a preference towards spin-orbit aligned mergers. Naturally, this has caused widespread interest and speculations regrading implications on various merger…
The first direct detections of gravitational waves from merging binary black holes open a unique window into the binary black hole formation environment. One promising environmental signature is the angular distribution of the black hole…
Binary black holes may form both through isolated binary evolution and through dynamical interactions in dense stellar environments. The formation channel leaves an imprint on the alignment between the black hole spins and the orbital…