Related papers: Which black hole formed first? Mass-ratio reversal…
Astrophysical black holes (BHs) can be fully described by their mass and spin. However, producing rapidly spinning ones is extremely difficult as the stars that produce them lose most of their angular momentum before the BH is formed.…
We use the gravitational wave signals from binary black hole merger events observed by LIGO and Virgo to reconstruct the underlying mass and spin distributions of the population of merging black holes. We reconstruct the population using…
One proposed black hole formation channel involves hierarchical mergers, where black holes form through repeated binary mergers. Previous studies have shown that such black holes follow a near-universal spin distribution centered around…
We present the population properties of merging compact binaries inferred using 267 mergers from the cumulative Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog 5.0. As this data set contains no new sources with a neutron star, we primarily focus on…
Population III stars, born from the primordial gas in the Universe, lose a negligible fraction of their mass via stellar winds and possibly follow a top-heavy mass function. Hence, they have often been regarded as the ideal progenitors of…
We present the first study of the dynamical evolution of an isolated star cluster that combines a significant population of primordial binaries with the presence of a central black hole. We use equal-mass direct N-body simulations, with N…
The gravitational wave signature of a binary black hole (BBH) merger is dependent on its component mass and spin. If such black holes originate from rapidly rotating progenitors, the large angular momentum reserve in the star could drive a…
Recently discovered bursts of gravitational waves provide a good opportunity to verify the current view on the evolution of close binary stars. Modern population synthesis computer programs help to study this evolution from two main…
When galaxies collide, dynamical friction drives their central supermassive black holes close enought to each other such that gravitational radiation becomes the leading dissipative effect. Gravitational radiation takes away energy,…
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…
Detailed stellar evolution and supernova models yield a bimodal black-hole mass distribution with a narrow peak around 10 solar masses from stars within a narrow range of progenitor properties and a second broader peak starting around 20…
We study the collapse of rapidly rotating supermassive stars that may have formed in the early Universe. By self-consistently simulating the dynamics from the onset of collapse using three-dimensional general-relativistic hydrodynamics with…
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…
We review the theory behind the formation of primordial black hole binaries and their merger rates. We consider the binary formation in the early and late Universe, emphasising the former as it gives the dominant contribution of the present…
A perturbed black hole emits gravitational radiation, usually termed the ringdown signal, whose frequency and time-constant depends on the mass and spin of the black hole. I investigate the case of a binary black hole merger resulting from…
The first directly observed gravitational wave event, GW150914, featuring the merger of two massive black holes, highlighted the need to determine how these systems of compact remnant binaries are formed. We use the binary population…
We revisit the modeling of the properties of the remnant black hole resulting the merger of a black-hole binary as a function of the parameters of the binary. We provide a set of empirical formulas for the final mass, spin and recoil…
Massive merging black holes will be the primary sources of powerful gravitational waves at low frequency, and will permit to test general relativity with candidate galaxies close to a binary black hole merger. In this paper we identify the…
The recent discovery of GW150914, the binary black hole merger detected by Advanced LIGO, has the potential to revolutionize observational astrophysics. But to fully utilize this new window into the universe, we must compare these new…
Rapid binary population synthesis codes are often used to investigate the evolution of compact-object binaries. They typically rely on analytical fits of single-star evolutionary tracks and parameterized models for interactive phases of…