Related papers: Wolf-Rayet -- compact object binaries as progenito…
The successive discoveries of binary merger events by Advanced LIGO-Virgo have been revealing the statistical properties of binary black hole (BBH) populations. A stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) is a useful tool to probe the…
Depending principally on mass, the compact object remnant left behind after a star's life may be a white dwarf (WD), neutron star (NS), or black hole (BH). While we have large samples of each of these remnants, we lack knowledge of the…
The recent detection of gravitational waves has proven the existence of massive stellar black hole binaries (BBHs), but the formation channels of BBHs are still an open question. Here, we investigate the demography of BBHs by using our new…
Almost every galaxy has a supermassive black hole (SMBH) residing at its center, the Milky Way included. Recent studies suggest that these unique places are expected to host a high abundance of stellar and compact object binaries. These…
Mergers of compact binaries, such as binary neutron stars (BNSs), neutron star-black hole binaries (NSBHs), and binary black holes (BBHs), are expected to be the best candidates for the sources of gravitational waves (GWs) and the leading…
The collapsar model for long gamma-ray bursts requires a rapidly rotating Wolf-Rayet star as progenitor. We test the idea of producing rapidly rotating Wolf-Rayet stars in massive close binaries through mass accretion and consecutive…
In the Milky Way, $\sim$18 Wolf-Rayet+O (WR+O) binaries are known with estimates of their stellar and orbital parameters. Whereas black hole+O (BH+O) binaries are thought to evolve from the former, only one such system is known in the Milky…
Coalescing neutron-star-black-hole (NS-BH) binaries are a promising source of gravitational-wave (GW) signals detectable with large-scale laser interferometers such as Advanced LIGO and Virgo. They are also one of the main short gamma-ray…
The evolutionary origin of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars at Solar metallicity is unclear. Single-star evolution from massive O stars, possibly via a Luminous Blue Variable phase, is challenged by binary period distributions of different WR…
Gravitational waves from merging binary black holes can be used to shed light on poorly understood aspects of massive binary stellar evolution, such as the evolution of massive stars (including their mass-loss rates), the common envelope…
We compare evolutionary predictions of double compact object merger rate densities with initial and forthcoming LIGO/Virgo upper limits. We find that: (i) Due to the cosmological reach of advanced detectors, current conversion methods of…
We examine the selection effects that determine how the population of inspiraling binary compact objects (BCOs) is reflected by those potentially observed with ground-based interferometers like LIGO. We lay the ground-work for the…
Compact Galactic binaries where at least one member is a white dwarf or neutron star constitute the majority of individually detectable sources for future low-frequency space-based gravitational-wave (GW) observatories; they also form an…
Binary black-holes (BHs) and binary neutron-stars (NSs) mergers had been recently detected through gravitational-wave (GW) emission, with the latter followed by post-merger electromagnetic counterparts, appearing seconds up to weeks after…
Massive stars are powerful cosmic engines. In the phases immediately preceding core-collapse, massive stars in the Galaxy with $M_i \gtrsim 20$ $M_{\odot}$ may appear as classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. As the final contribution of a…
Observations of X-ray binaries indicate a dearth of compact objects in the mass range from $\sim 2-5 M_{\odot}$. The existence of this (first mass) gap has been used to discriminate between proposed engines behind core-collapse supernovae.…
On 2019 April 25, the LIGO/Virgo Scientific Collaboration detected a compact binary coalescence, GW190425. Under the assumption of the binary neutron star (BNS), the total mass of $3.4^{+0.3}_{-0.1}\, M_\odot$ lies five standard deviations…
We present a quantitative study on the properties at death of fast-rotating massive stars evolved at low-metallicity, objects that are proposed as likely progenitors of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs). We perform 1D+rotation…
Studying compact-object binary mergers in star clusters is crucial for understanding stellar evolution and dynamical interactions in galaxies. Open clusters in particular are more abundant over cosmic time than globular clusters, however,…
The LIGO/Virgo detections of gravitational waves from merging black holes of $\simeq$ 30 solar mass suggest progenitor stars of low metallicity (Z/Z$_{\odot} \lesssim 0.3$). In this talk I will provide constrains on where the progenitors of…