Related papers: Gravitational waves carry information beyond effec…
We explore spinning, precessing, unequal mass binary black holes to display the long term orbital angular momentum, $\vec{L}$, flip dynamics. We study two prototypical cases of binaries with mass ratios $q=1/7$ and $q=1/15$ and a misaligned…
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…
Characterizing the properties of black holes is one of the most important science objectives for gravitational-wave observations. Astrophysical evidence suggests that black holes that are nearly extremal (i.e. spins near the theoretical…
We characterize the expected statistical errors with which the parameters of black-hole binaries can be measured from gravitational-wave (GW) observations of their inspiral, merger and ringdown by a network of second-generation ground-based…
Gravitational-wave signals from black-hole binaries with non-precessing spins are described by four parameters -- each black hole's mass and spin. It has been shown that the dominant spin effects can be modeled by a \emph{single} spin…
Gravitational waves emitted by coalescing compact objects carry information about the spin of the individual bodies. However, with present detectors only the mass-weighted combination of the components of the spin along the orbital angular…
Population studies of stellar-mass black-hole binaries have become major players in gravitational-wave astronomy. The underlying assumptions are that the targeted source parameters refer to the same quantities for all events in the catalog…
The properties of the population of merging binary black holes encode some of the uncertain physics of the evolution of massive stars in binaries. The binary black hole merger rate and chirp mass distribution are being measured by…
The first direct detections of gravitational waves from merging binary black holes open a unique window into the binary black hole formation environment. One promising environmental signature is the angular distribution of the black hole…
The detection of electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves has great promise for the investigation of many scientific questions. It has long been hoped that in addition to providing extra, non-gravitational information about the…
Gravitational waves from binary black holes have the potential to yield information on both of the intrinsic parameters that characterize the compact objects: their masses and spins. While the component masses are usually resolvable, the…
Gravitational-wave observations are playing an instrumental role in understanding the population of binary compact objects in the Universe. These observations have begun to hint at the mass distribution of binary black holes (BBHs), with…
Gravitational waves detected by advanced ground-based detectors have allowed studying the universe in a way which is fully complementary to electromagnetic observations. As more sources are detected, it will be possible to measure…
The continued operation of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors is enabling the first detailed measurements of the mass, spin, and redshift distributions of the merging binary black hole population. Our present…
Gravitational waves deliver information in exquisite detail about astrophysical phenomena, among them the collision of two black holes, a system completely invisible to the eyes of electromagnetic telescopes. Models that predict…
Compact binary coalescences are the most promising sources of gravitational waves (GWs) for ground based detectors. Binary systems containing one or two spinning black holes are particularly interesting due to spin-orbit (and eventual…
We present a study of the gravitational waveforms from a series of spinning, equal-mass black hole binaries focusing on the harmonic content of the waves and the contribution of the individual harmonics to the signal-to-noise ratio. The…
The vast majority of compact binary mergers in the Universe produce gravitational waves that are too weak to yield unambiguous detections; they are unresolved. We present a method to infer the population properties of compact binaries --…
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 nonlinear aspect of gravitational wave generation that produces power at harmonics of the orbital frequency, above the fundamental quadrupole frequency, is examined to see what information about the source is contained in these higher…