Related papers: Relieving scale disparity in binary black hole sim…
Compact binary coalescences are the most promising sources of gravitational waves (GWs) for ground based detectors. Binary systems containing one or two spinning black holes are particularly interesting due to spin-orbit (and eventual…
We study how well the mass of the graviton can be constrained from gravitational-wave (GW) observations of coalescing binary black holes. Whereas the previous investigations employed post-Newtonian (PN) templates describing only the…
This manuscript is a lightly reformatted version of my 2017 PhD thesis. I am posting it on arXiv at the request of my advisor, Sergiu Klainerman, who noted that it has been useful to some students. The content largely reflects the thesis in…
Binary black holes which are both eccentric and undergo precession remain unexplored in numerical simulations. We present simulations of such systems which cover about 50 orbits at comparatively high mass ratios 5 and 7. The configurations…
LIGO and Virgo have recently observed a number of gravitational wave (GW) signals that are fully consistent with being emitted by binary black holes described by general relativity. However, there are theoretical proposals of exotic objects…
We investigate the absorption and scattering by a Schwarzschild black hole in scalar--tensor theories of gravity, where the coupling between matter and the scalar field induces different models for the effective mass of the scalar field. In…
We introduce a new approach for finding high accuracy, free and closed-form expressions for the gravitational waves emitted by binary black hole collisions from ab initio models. More precisely, our expressions are built from numerical…
The orbital motion of inspiralling and coalescing black hole binaries can be investigated using a variety of approximation schemes and numerical methods within general relativity: post-Newtonian expansions, black hole perturbation theory,…
We study dispersive properties for the wave equation in the Schwarzschild space-time. The first result we obtain is a local energy estimate. This is then used, following the spirit of earlier work of Metcalfe-Tataru, in order to establish…
We present a method for extracting gravitational waves from numerical spacetimes which generalizes and refines one of the standard methods based on the Regge--Wheeler--Zerilli perturbation formalism. [abridged] We then present fully…
A general method is presented for estimating the uncertainty in hybrid models of gravitational waveforms from binary black-hole systems with arbitrary physical parameters, and thence the highest allowable initial orbital frequency for a…
Perturbations of Schwarzschild-Droste black holes in the Regge-Wheeler gauge benefit from the availability of a wave equation and from the gauge invariance of the wave function, but lack smoothness. Nevertheless, the even perturbations…
Several improvements in numerical methods and gauge choice are presented that make it possible now to perform simulations of the merger and ringdown phases of "generic" binary black-hole evolutions using the pseudo-spectral evolution code…
It is expected that the realization of a convergent and long-term stable numerical code for the simulation of a black hole inspiral collision will depend greatly upon the construction of stable algorithms capable of handling smooth and,…
We investigate the correction to the potential that gives rise to the bound orbits and radiation from non-spinning inspiralling binary black holes in a dark matter environment consisting of axion-like particles and dark photons using the…
In this thesis we study the conservative gravitational dynamics of binary systems using the eikonal approximation; allowing us to use scattering amplitude techniques to calculate dynamical quantities in classical gravity. This has…
We revisit the problem of scalar and electromagnetic waves impinging upon a Schwarzschild black hole from complex angular momentum techniques. We focus more particularly on the associated differential scattering cross sections. We derive an…
Compact binaries with large mass asymmetries - such as Extreme and Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals - are unique probes of the astrophysical environments in which they evolve. Their long-lived and intricate dynamics allow for precise…
Wave equations containing spatial derivatives which are higher than second order arise naturally in the context of condensed matter systems. The solutions of such equations contain more than two modes and consequently, the range of possible…
Local and distant measurements of the Hubble constant are in significant tension: local measurements of the Hubble constant appear to show a Universe that is significantly contracted when compared to distant measurements. From the point of…