Related papers: Mergers as a Probe of Particle Dark Matter
Unusual masses of black holes being discovered by gravitational wave experiments pose fundamental questions about the origin of these black holes. Black holes with masses smaller than the Chandrasekhar limit $\approx1.4\,M_\odot$ are…
The recent detection of gravitational waves from a binary merger involving a potential low-mass gap black hole (LMBH) by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration motivates investigations into mechanisms beyond conventional stellar evolution…
When two black holes merge in a dense star cluster, they form a new black hole with a well-defined mass and spin. If that "second-generation" black hole remains in the cluster, it will continue to participate in dynamical encounters, form…
The majority of massive stars are found in close binaries which: (i) are prone to merge and (ii) are accompanied by another distant tertiary star (triples). Here, we study the evolution of the stellar post-merger binaries composed of the…
Dark matter overdensities around black holes can be searched for by looking at the characteristic imprint they leave on the gravitational waveform of binary black hole mergers. Current theoretical predictions of the density profile of dark…
Annihilations of weakly interacting dark matter particles provide an important signature for the possibility of indirect detection of dark matter in galaxy halos. These self-annihilations can be greatly enhanced in the vicinity of a massive…
The existence of compact stellar remnants in the mass range $2-5\,M_{\odot}$ has long been debated. This so-called lower mass gap was initially suggested by the lack of low-mass X-ray binary observations with accretors about…
Primordial black holes in the asteroid-mass window ($\sim 10^{-16}$ to $10^{-11} \rm M_{\odot}$), which might constitute all the dark matter, can be captured by stars when they traverse them at low enough velocity. After being placed on a…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
In the standard picture of stellar evolution, pair-instability -- the energy loss in stellar cores due to electron-positron pair production -- is predicted to prevent the collapse of massive stars into black holes with mass in the range…
Neutron stars offer powerful astrophysical laboratories to probe the properties of dark matter. Gradual accumulation of heavy, non-annihilating dark matter in neutron stars can lead to the formation of comparable-mass black holes, and…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) in the mass range $(30$--$100)~M_{\odot}$ are interesting candidates for dark matter, as they sit in a narrow window between microlensing and cosmic microwave background constraints. There are however tight…
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…
We explore the possible spectrum of binary mergers of sub-solar mass black holes formed out of dark matter particles interacting via a dark electromagnetism. We estimate the properties of these dark black holes by assuming that their…
Binary neutron-star mergers will predominantly produce black-hole remnants of mass $\sim 3-4\,M_{\odot}$, thus populating the putative \emph{low mass gap} between neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes. If these low-mass black holes are…
We investigate the effects of black hole mergers in star clusters on the black hole mass function. As black holes are not produced in pair-instability supernovae, it is suggested that there is a dearth of high mass stellar black holes. This…
Black holes with masses $\approx 1\, M_{\odot}$ cannot be produced via stellar evolution. A popular scenario of their formation involves transmutation of neutron stars - by accumulation of dark matter triggering gravitational collapse in…
Primordial black holes formed through the collapse of cosmological density fluctuations have been hypothesised as contributors to the dark matter content of the Universe. At the same time, their mergers could contribute to the recently…
We propose a mechanism that can convert a sizeable fraction of neutron stars into black holes with mass $\sim 1M_\odot$, too light to be produced via standard stellar evolution. We show that asymmetric fermionic dark matter of mass $\sim$…
The origin of the black-hole:black-hole mergers discovered through gravitational waves with for example the LIGO/Virgo collaboration are a mystery. We investigate the idea that some of these black holes originate from the centers of…