Related papers: Superradiant clouds may be relevant for close comp…
Binary black holes can form efficiently in dense young stellar clusters, such as the progenitors of globular clusters, via a combination of gravitational segregation and cluster evaporation. We use simple analytic arguments supported by…
A black hole binary approaching merger undergoes changes in its inspiral rate as energy and angular momentum are lost from the orbits into the horizons. This effect strengthens as the black holes come closer. We use numerical relativity…
The last decade of observational and theoretical developments in stellar and binary evolution provides an opportunity to incorporate major improvements to the predictions from populations synthesis models. We compute the Galactic merger…
We show that highly spinning primordial black holes of mass $M\sim 10^{12}$ kg, potentially born in a matter-dominated era after inflation, can produce clouds of pions in their vicinity via the superradiant instability, with densities up to…
The vast majority of massive binary systems in the universe is evidently unsuited to produce merging binary black holes. However, several narrow evolutionary paths of isolated massive binaries towards this goal have recently been…
The formation, merging, and accretion history of massive black holes along the hierarchical build--up of cosmic structures leaves a unique imprint on the background of gravitational waves at mHz frequencies. We study here, by means of…
Large dark matter overdensities can form around black holes of astrophysical and primordial origin as they form and grow. This "dark dress" inevitably affects the dynamical evolution of binary systems, and induces a dephasing in the…
A circumbinary disc around a pair of merging stellar-mass black holes may be shocked and heated during the recoil of the merged hole, causing a near-simultaneous electromagnetic counterpart to the gravitational wave event. The shocks occur…
Binary black hole systems are typically assumed to evolve in vacuum. However, the environment surrounding the binary components can influence their properties, such as their tidal deformability, affecting the gravitational waveform produced…
Dynamical interactions that take place between objects in dense stellar systems lead to frequent formation of exotic stellar objects, unusual binaries, and systems of higher multiplicity. They are most important for the formation of…
Stellar models indicate that the core compactness of a star, which is a common proxy for its explodability in a supernova, does not increase monotonically with the star's mass. Rather, the core compactness dips sharply over a range of…
Ultralight bosons are a proposed solution to outstanding problems in cosmology and particle physics: they provide a dark-matter candidate while potentially explaining the strong charge-parity problem. If they exist, ultralight bosons can…
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…
Black hole - neutron star $(BH/NS)$ binaries are of interest in many ways: they are intrinsically multi-messenger systems, highly transient, radiate gravitational waves detectable by LIGO, and may produce $\gamma$-ray bursts. Although it…
A massive black hole binary might resonantly trap a star (e.g. a white dwarf) and the gas released by its tidal disruption might emit electromagnetic wave signals around the coalescence of the binary. With post-Newtonian equations of motion…
Using a one-dimensional height integrated model, we calculate the evolution of an unequal mass binary black hole with a coplanar gas disk that contains a gap due to the presence of the secondary black hole. Viscous evolution of the outer…
We study an accretion flow during the gravitational-wave driven evolution of binary massive black holes. After the binary orbit decays due to an interaction with a massive circumbinary disk, the binary is decoupled from the circumbinary…
We study the basic properties of accretion flows onto binary supermassive black holes, including the cases in which a circumbinary disk is misaligned with the binary orbital plane, by means of three-dimensional Smoothed Particle…
If binary intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; with masses between 100 and $10^4 \Msun$) form in dense stellar clusters, their inspiral will be detectable with the planned Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) out to several Gpc. Here…
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…