Related papers: General-relativistic precession in a black-hole bi…
We reanalyse the LIGO-Virgo strain data of the 10 binary black hole mergers reported to date and compute the likelihood function in terms of chirp mass, mass ratio and effective spin. We discuss the strong degeneracy between mass ratio and…
Binary black holes (BBHs) detected by gravitational wave (GW) observations could be broadly divided into two formation channels: those formed through field binary evolution and those assembled dynamically in dense stellar systems. Each of…
Based on the rate of gravitational-wave (GW) detections by Advanced LIGO and Virgo, we expect these detectors to observe hundreds of binary black hole mergers as they achieve their design sensitivities (within a few years). A small fraction…
Gravitational wave (GW) observations of binary black hole (BBH) coalescences provide a unique opportunity to test general relativity (GR) in the strong-field regime. To ensure the reliability of these tests, it is essential to identify and…
The spin orientations of spinning binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected by ground-based gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO and Virgo can provide important clues about the formation of such binaries. However, these spin tilts,…
An accurate and precise measurement of the spins of individual merging black holes is required to understand their origin. While previous studies have indicated that most of the spin information comes from the inspiral part of the signal,…
Recent direct registration of gravitational waves by LIGO and astronomical observations of the universe at redshifts 5-10 demonstrate that the standard astrophysics and cosmology are in tension with the data. The origin of the source of the…
Now that LIGO has revealed the existence of a large number of binary black holes, identifying their origin becomes an important challenge. They might originate in more isolated regions of the galaxy or alternatively they might reside in…
The LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors have uncovered binary black hole systems with definitively nonzero spins, as well as systems with significant spin residing in the more massive black hole of the pair. We investigate the…
We study the formation of coalescing binary black holes via the evolution of isolated field binaries that go through the common envelope phase in order to obtain the combined distributions of the main observables of Advanced LIGO. We used a…
We study the effects of general relativity (GR) on the evolution and alignment of circumbinary disks around binaries on all scales. We implement relativistic apsidal precession of the binary into the hydrodynamics code {\sc phantom}. We…
The physical nature of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to involve an ultra-relativistic jet. The observed complex structure of light curves motivate the idea of jet precession. In this work, we study the gravitational waves of jet…
This paper presents a parameter estimation analysis of the seven binary black hole mergers---GW170104, GW170608, GW170729, GW170809, GW170814, GW170818, and GW170823---detected during the second observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Virgo…
Spin precession is one of the key physical effects that could unveil the origin of the compact binaries detected by ground- and space-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors, and shed light on their possible formation channels. Efficiently…
The barycenter of a massive black hole binary will lie outside the event horizon of the primary black hole for modest values of mass ratio and binary separation. Analagous to radial velocity shifts in stellar emission lines caused by the…
The detection of gravitational waves (GWs) from binary black hole (BBH) coalescences by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration has raised fundamental questions about the genesis of these events. In this chapter, we explore the possibility…
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…
The mass and spin properties of binary black holes (BBHs) inferred from their gravitational-wave signatures reveal important clues about how these systems form. BBHs originating from isolated binary evolution are expected to have spins…
Binary black hole spins are among the key observables for gravitational wave astronomy. Among the spin parameters, their orientations within the orbital plane, $\phi_1$, $\phi_2$ and $\Delta \phi=\phi_1-\phi_2$, are critical for…
A wide variety of astrophysical and cosmological sources are expected to contribute to a stochastic gravitational-wave background. Following the observations of GW150914 and GW151226, the rate and mass of coalescing binary black holes…