Related papers: A catalogue of precessing black-hole-binary numeri…
We compare GW150914 directly to simulations of coalescing binary black holes in full general relativity, accounting for all the spin-weighted quadrupolar modes, and separately accounting for all the quadrupolar and octopolar modes.…
We present the first numerical simulations of an initially non-spinning black-hole binary with mass ratio as large as 10:1 in full general relativity. The binary completes approximately 3 orbits prior to merger and radiates about 0.415% of…
Black-hole (BH) binaries with single-BH masses m=5--20 Msun, moving on quasicircular orbits, are among the most promising sources for first-generation ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Until now, the development of…
The observation of gravitational-wave signals from merging black-hole binaries enables direct measurement of the properties of the black holes. An individual observation allows measurement of the black-hole masses, but only limited…
Spin precession in merging black-hole binaries is a treasure trove for both astrophysics and fundamental physics. There are now well-established strategies to infer from gravitational-wave data whether at least one of the two black holes is…
Determining the final spin of a black-hole (BH) binary is a question of key importance in astrophysics. Modelling this quantity in general is made difficult by the fact that it depends on the 7-dimensional space of parameters characterizing…
We use the open source, community-driven, numerical relativity software, the Einstein Toolkit to study the physics of eccentric, spinning, nonprecessing binary black hole mergers with mass-ratios $q=\{2, 4, 6\}$, individual dimensionless…
We investigate the problem of detecting gravitational waves from binaries of nonspinning black holes with masses m = 5--20 Msun, moving on quasicircular orbits, which are arguably the most promising sources for first-generation ground-based…
We study the spin dynamics of individual black holes in a binary system. In particular we focus on the polar precession of spins and the possibility of a complete flip of spins with respect to the orbital plane. We perform a full numerical…
The origin of the spins of stellar-mass black holes is still controversial, and angular momentum transport inside massive stars is one of the main sources of uncertainty. Here, we apply hierarchical Bayesian inference to derive constraints…
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…
Binary black holes formed via different pathways are predicted to have distinct spin properties. Measuring these properties with gravitational waves provides an opportunity to unveil the origins of binary black holes. Recent work draws…
Supermassive black hole binaries are likely to accrete interstellar gas through a circumbinary disk. Shortly before merger, the inner portions of this circumbinary disk are subject to general relativistic effects. To study this regime, we…
In this work we study the dynamics of spinning binary black hole systems in the strong field regime. For this purpose we extract from numerical relativity simulations the binding energy, specific orbital angular momentum, and…
Parameter estimation of binary-black-hole merger events in gravitational-wave data relies on matched-filtering techniques, which, in turn, depend on accurate model waveforms. Here we characterize the systematic biases introduced in…
We present techniques for successfully performing numerical relativity simulations of binary black holes with fourth-order accuracy. Our simulations are based on a new coding framework which currently supports higher order finite…
We use the Novikov-Thorne thin disk model to fit the thermal continuum X-ray spectra of black hole X-ray binaries, and thereby extract the dimensionless spin parameter a* = a/M of the black hole as a parameter of the fit. We summarize the…
We used two numerical models, namely the \texttt{CBwaves} and \texttt{SEOBNRE} algorithms, based on the post-Newtonian and effective-one-body approaches for binary black holes evolving on eccentric orbits. We performed 20.000 new…
Precession in Binary Black Holes (BBH) is caused by the failure of the Black Hole spins to be aligned and its study can open up new perspectives in gravitational waves (GW) astronomy, providing, among other advancements, a precise measure…
We perform magnetohydrodynamic simulations in full general relativity of disk accretion onto nonspinning black hole binaries with mass ratio 36:29. We survey different disk models which differ in their scale height, total size and magnetic…