Related papers: Spin Doctors: How to diagnose a hierarchical merge…
Gravitational wave observations of binary black hole mergers probe their astrophysical origins via the binary spin, namely the spin magnitudes and directions of each component black hole, together described by six degrees of freedom.…
The behavior of merging black holes (including the emitted gravitational waves and the properties of the remnant) can currently be computed only by numerical simulations. This paper introduces ten numerical relativity simulations of binary…
One of the proposed channels of binary black hole mergers involves dynamical interactions of three black holes. In such scenarios, it is possible that all three black holes merge in a so-called hierarchical merger chain, where two of the…
Orbital eccentricity is one of the most robust discriminators for distinguishing between dynamical and isolated formation scenarios of binary black hole mergers using gravitational-wave observatories such as LIGO and Virgo. Using…
The origin of the black hole mergers detected by LIGO and Virgo remains an open question. While the unusual mass and spin of a few events constrain their possible astrophysical formation mechanisms, it is difficult to classify the bulk of…
Primordial black hole (PBH) binaries experience strong gravitational perturbations in the case of their initial clustering, which significantly affects the dynamics of their mergers. In this work, we develop a new formalism to account for…
Recently, advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO) has detected black hole (BH) merger events, most of which are sourced by BHs more massive than $30~M_\odot$. Especially, the observation of GW170104 suggests…
Nearly 210 binary black hole (BBH) mergers have been observed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network during its four observing runs. Generic BBHs are spinning, and their spins are misaligned with the orbital angular momentum $\vec{L}$. These…
The high rate of black hole (BH) mergers detected by LIGO/Virgo opened questions on their astrophysical origin. One possibility is the dynamical channel, in which binary formation and hardening is catalyzed by dynamical encounters in…
Massive merging black holes will be the primary sources of powerful gravitational waves at low frequency, and will permit to test general relativity with candidate galaxies close to a binary black hole merger. In this paper we identify the…
The first discovery of the gravitational wave (GW) event, GW150914, suggests a higher merger rate of black-hole (BH) binaries. If this is true, a number of BH binaries will be observed via the second-generation GW detectors, and the…
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…
Observations by LIGO--Virgo of binary black hole mergers suggest a possible anti-correlation between black hole mass ratio ($q=m_{2}/m_{1}$) and the effective inspiral spin parameter $\chi_{\rm eff}$, the mass-weighted spin projection onto…
The spins of binary black holes (BBHs) measured from gravitational waves carry notable information of the formation pathways. Here we propose a quantity "dimensionless net spin" ($\chi_{\rm N}$), which is related to the sum of angular…
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaborations have reported gravitational wave signals from more than 150 binary black holes in the fourth catalog (GWTC-4). Here, we investigate the population properties of these binary black holes using the…
We present a highly accurate, fully analytical model for the late inspiral, merger, and ringdown of black-hole binaries with arbitrary mass ratios and spin vectors, including the contributions of harmonics beyond the fundamental mode. This…
Population inference of gravitational-wave catalogues is a useful tool to translate observations of black-hole mergers into constraints on compact-binary formation. Different formation channels predict identifiable signatures in the…
Formation of binary black holes (BBHs) detected by gravitational-wave (GW) observations could be broadly divided into two categories: those formed through field binary evolution and those assembled dynamically in dense stellar systems. The…
The individual component spins of binary black holes (BBHs) are difficult to resolve using gravitational-wave observations but carry key signatures of the processes shaping their formation and evolution. Recent analyses have found…
Are the stellar-mass merging binary black holes, recently detected by their gravitational wave signal, of stellar or primordial origin? Answering this question will have profound implications for our understanding of the Universe, including…