Related papers: Modulating binary dynamics via the termination of …
The secular evolution of a spinning, massive binary system in eccentric orbit is analyzed, expanding and generalizing our previous treatments of the Lense-Thirring motion and the one-spin limit. The spin-orbit and spin-spin effects up to…
Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals are one of the most exciting and promising target sources for space-based interferometers (such as LISA, TianQin). The observation of their emitted gravitational waves will offer stringent tests on general…
We study binary systems in which a stellar mass compact object spirals into a massive black hole, known as extreme mass ratio inspirals, in scenarios with a new fundamental scalar field. Earlier work has shown that, in most interesting such…
Binary black hole simulations starting from quasi-circular (i.e., zero radial velocity) initial data have orbits with small but non-zero orbital eccentricities. In this paper the quasi-equilibrium initial-data method is extended to allow…
We investigate the pre-disruption gravitational dynamics and post-disruption hydrodynamics of the tidal disruption of stars by supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. We focus on binaries with relatively low mass primaries…
We construct evolutionary tracks for massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) embedded in a surrounding distribution of stars. The dynamics of the binary is evolved by taking into account the erosion of the central stellar cusp bound to the…
Gravitational signatures of black hole superradiance are a unique probe of ultralight particles that are weakly-coupled to ordinary matter. The existence of an ultralight boson would lead spinning black holes with size comparable to the…
We perform a parameter study of non-spinning, equal and unequal mass black hole binaries on generic, eccentric orbits in numerical relativity. The linear momentum considered ranges from that of a circular orbit to ten times that value. We…
The classical no-hair theorem states that stationary black holes in general relativity can be completely described by only a small set of global parameters. Within this framework, no additional geometric structures are expected to persist…
We perform several black-hole binary evolutions using fully nonlinear numerical relativity techniques at separations large enough that low-order post-Newtonian expansions are expected to be accurate. As a case study, we evolve an equal-mass…
In the last few years before merger, supermassive black hole binaries will rapidly inspiral and precess in a magnetic field imposed by a surrounding circumbinary disk. Multiple simulations suggest this relative motion will convert some of…
Ultralight bosons can form clouds around rotating black holes if their Compton wavelength is comparable to the black hole size. The boson cloud spins down the black hole through a process called superradiance, lowering the black hole spin…
We present a new approach to studying the evolution of massive black hole binaries in a stellar environment. By imposing conservation of total energy and angular momentum in scattering experiments, we find the dissipation forces that are…
Galaxy mergers produce supermassive black hole binaries, which emit gravitational waves prior to their coalescence. We perform three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations to study the tidal disruption of stars by such a binary in the final…
We study the evolution of the orientation of the orbital plane of massive black hole binaries (BHBs) in rotating stellar systems in which the total angular momentum of the stellar cusp is misaligned with respect to that of the binary. We…
The post-Newtonian approximation is useful to discuss gravitational waveforms for binary inspirals. In this note, for retrograde circular orbits in the equatorial plane, we discuss the region of validity of the post-Newtonian approximation…
Rotating black holes can amplify ultralight bosonic fields through superradiance, forming macroscopic clouds known as gravitational atoms. When the cloud forms around one of the components of a binary system, it can undergo a series of…
We describe a new class of resonances for extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs): tidal resonances, induced by the tidal field of nearby stars or stellar-mass black holes. A tidal resonance can be viewed as a general relativistic extension of…
We examine extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) as probes of beyond-vacuum general relativistic effects, accounting for both astrophysical environments and scalar Gauss-Bonnet (sGB) gravity. In beyond-vacuum scenarios, the evolution of an…
Extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) are long-duration gravitational-wave sources in which a compact object gradually spirals into a massive black hole. Their formation is governed by the interplay between stochastic angular-momentum…