Related papers: Inferring the spin distribution of binary black ho…
The origin of the spins of stellar-mass black holes is still controversial, and angular momentum transport inside massive stars is one of the main sources of uncertainty. Here, we apply hierarchical Bayesian inference to derive constraints…
It has been proposed that some black holes (BHs) in binary black hole (BBH) systems are born from "hierarchical mergers" (HM); i.e. earlier mergers of smaller BHs. These HM products have spin magnitudes $\chi \sim 0.7$, and, if they are…
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…
We investigate how to use information on the effective spin parameter of binary black hole mergers from the LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave detections to discriminate the origin of the merging black holes. We calculate the expected…
A gravitational wave (GW) signal carries imprints of the properties of its source. The ability to extract source properties crucially depends on our prior knowledge of the signal morphology. Even though binary black hole (BBH) mergers are…
Black hole (BH) mergers driven by gravitational perturbations of external companions constitute an important class of formation channels for merging BH binaries detected by LIGO. We have studied the orbital and spin evolution of binary BHs…
This paper presents techniques and results for simulations of unequal mass, non-spinning black hole binaries with pseudo-spectral methods. Specifically, we develop an efficient root-finding procedure to ensure the black hole initial data…
The dynamical assembly of binary black holes (BBHs) in dense star clusters (SCs) is one of the most promising pathways for producing observable gravitational wave (GW) sources, however several other formation scenarios likely operate as…
Hierarchical structure formation inevitably leads to the formation of supermassive binary black holes (BBHs) with a sub-parsec separation in galactic nuclei. However, to date there has been no unambiguous detection of such systems. In an…
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 --…
Using recent results from numerical relativity simulations of black hole mergers, we revisit previous studies of cosmological black hole spin evolution. We show that mergers are very unlikely to yield large spins, unless alignment of the…
Orbital eccentricity and spin precession are precious observables to infer the formation history of binary black holes with gravitational-wave data. We present a post-Newtonian, multi-timescale analysis of the binary dynamics able to…
Peculiar velocity encodes rich information about the formation, dynamics, evolution, and merging history of binary black holes. In this work, we employ a hierarchical Bayesian model to infer the peculiar velocity distribution of binary…
In dense stellar environments, the merger products of binary black hole mergers may undergo additional mergers. These hierarchical mergers are predicted to have higher masses than the first generation of black holes made from stars. The…
The spin-orbit tilt angles $\theta_{1(2)}$ of merging stellar-mass black holes provide key insights into their astrophysical origin. Non-parametric population modelling of The LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA Collaborations (2025a, arXiv:2508.18083)…
We introduce a gravitational waveform inversion strategy that discovers mechanical models of binary black hole (BBH) systems. We show that only a single time series of (possibly noisy) waveform data is necessary to construct the equations…
When modeling the population of merging binary black holes, analyses have generally focused on characterizing the distribution of primary (i.e. more massive) black holes in the binary, while simplistic prescriptions are used for the…
Mass and spin of massive black holes (BHs) at the centre of galaxies evolve due to gas accretion and mergers with other BHs. Besides affecting e.g. the evolution of relativistic jets, the BH spin determines the efficiency with which the BH…
Binary black holes (BBHs) can form from the collapsed cores of isolated high-mass binary stars. The masses and spins of these BBHs are determined by the complicated interplay of phenomena such as tides, winds, accretion, common-envelope…
The astrophysical origin of gravitational wave (GW) events is one of the most timely problems in the wake of the LIGO/Virgo discoveries. In active galactic nuclei (AGN), binaries form and evolve efficiently by dynamical interactions and…