Related papers: Accretion mediated spin-eccentricity correlations …
Current simulations of the rate at which stellar-mass compact objects merge with supermassive black holes (called extreme mass ratio inspirals, or EMRIs) focus on two-body capture by emission of gravitational radiation. The gravitational…
"Hard" massive black hole (MBH) binaries embedded in steep stellar cusps can shrink via three-body slingshot interactions. We show that this process will inevitably be accompanied by a burst of stellar tidal disruptions, at a rate that can…
Properties of the to-date-observed binary black hole (BBH) merger events suggest a preference towards spin-orbit aligned mergers. Naturally, this has caused widespread interest and speculations regrading implications on various merger…
Circumbinary accretion occurs throughout the universe, from the formation of stars and planets to the aftermath of major galactic mergers. We present an extensive investigation of circumbinary accretion disks, studying circular binaries…
Self-lensing flares (SLFs) are expected to be produced once or twice per orbit by an accreting massive black hole binary (MBHB), if the eclipsing MBHBs are observed close to edge-on. SLFs can provide valuable electromagnetic (EM) signatures…
In the hierarchical paradigm of galaxy formation, central massive black holes (MBHs) are expected to coalesce after the merger of their host galaxies. One of the main goals of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is to constrain…
While supermassive binary black holes inspiral toward merger they may also experience significant accretion of matter from a surrounding disk. We study the dynamics of this system, simultaneously describing the evolving spacetime and…
The putative ubiquity of massive black holes (MBH) at the center of galaxies, and the hierarchical progress of structure formation along the cosmic history, together necessarily imply the existence of a large population of cosmic MBH…
We study the orbital evolution and accretion history of massive black hole (MBH) pairs in rotationally supported circumnuclear discs up to the point where MBHs form binary systems. Our simulations have high resolution in mass and space…
We present a global three-dimensional radiation magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) simulation of a circumbinary disk (CBD) around a massive black hole binary (MBHB) with a total mass $2 \times 10^7\,M_{\odot}$ and mass ratio $0.1$, separated by…
We present a study of the gas-driven orbital evolution of unequal mass black hole binaries with circumbinary gas disks (CBDs), varying Mach number and viscosity (nu). Using two-dimensional grid-based hydrodynamics simulations spanning a…
We study the dynamics of supermassive black hole binaries embedded in circumbinary gaseous discs, with the SPH code Gadget-2. The sub-parsec binary (of total mass M and mass ratio q=1/3) has excavated a gap and transfers its angular…
We study precession dynamics of generic binary black holes in eccentric orbits using an effective potential based formalism derived in [M. Kesden et al., PRL {\bf 114}, 081103 (2015)]. This effective potential is used to classify binary…
The launch of space based gravitational wave (GW) detectors (e.g. Laser Interferometry Space Antenna; LISA) and current and upcoming Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) will extend the GW window to low frequencies, opening new investigations into…
We report the first 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulation that captures the full, self-consistent evolution from the late inspiral through merger and subsequent recoil of a supermassive binary black hole (SMBBH)…
We have investigated, both analytically and numerically, accreting supermassive black hole binaries as they inspiral due to gravitational radiation to elucidate the decoupling of binaries from their disks and inform future multi-messenger…
Recent studies of accretion onto supermassive black hole binaries suggest that much, perhaps most, of the matter eventually accretes onto one hole or the other. If so, then for binaries whose inspiral from ~1 pc to 0.001 - 0.01 pc is driven…
Attempts to understand the formation of binary black hole (BBH) systems detected via gravitational wave (GW) emission are affected by many unknowns and uncertainties, from both the observational and theoretical (astrophysical modelling)…
We present the first systematic study on how distant weak interactions impact the dynamical evolution of merging binary black holes (BBHs) in dense stellar clusters. Recent studies indicate that dense clusters are likely to significantly…
GW231123, the most massive binary black hole (BBH) merger detected by LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA, highlights the need to understand the origins of massive, high-spin stellar black holes (BHs). Dense star clusters provide natural environments for…