Related papers: Connecting The Hierarchically Merging Binary Black…
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…
To unlock the full spectrum of astrophysical and cosmological applications of gravitational-wave detections, it is essential to localise the associated black-hole mergers to high precision inside their host galaxies. One possible method to…
We present a novel self-consistent theoretical framework to characterize the formation, evolution, and merger sites of dynamically-formed black hole binaries, with a focus on explaining the most massive events observed by the…
A significant number of stellar binary black hole (sBBH) mergers may be lensed and detected by the third generation gravitational wave (GW) detectors. Their lensed host galaxies may be detectable, which thus helps to accurately localize…
The formation environments of merging binary black holes remain uncertain. While hierarchical assembly in dense stellar clusters has been widely explored as an explanation for black holes exceeding the stellar-mass limit, growth through gas…
Several astrophysical scenarios have been proposed to explain the origin of the population of binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected in gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration. Among them, BBH mergers assembled…
The origin of stellar-mass black hole mergers discovered through gravitational waves is being widely debated. Mergers in the disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) represent a promising source of origin, with possible observational clues in…
Motivated by the recent detection of gravitational waves from the black hole binary merger GW150914, we study the dynamical evolution of black holes in galactic nuclei where massive star clusters reside. With masses of ~10^7M_Sun and sizes…
LIGO/Virgo has detected several binary black hole (BBH) merger events that may have originated in the accretion disks of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). These events require individual black hole masses that fall within the pair instability…
The discovery of the gravitational-wave source GW150914 with the Advanced LIGO detectors provides the first observational evidence for the existence of binary black-hole systems that inspiral and merge within the age of the Universe. Such…
We study the formation rate of binary black hole mergers formed through gravitational-wave emission between unbound, single black holes in globular clusters. While the formation of these binaries in very dense systems such as galactic…
The accretion disks that fuel active galactic nuclei (AGN) may house numerous stars and compact objects, formed in situ or captured from nearby star clusters. Embedded neutron stars and black holes may form binaries and eventually merge,…
Gravitational wave observations of eccentric binary black hole mergers will provide unequivocal evidence for the formation of these systems through dynamical assembly in dense stellar environments. The study of these astrophysically…
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…
Many stellar-mass Black Holes (sBHs) are expected to orbit supermassive black holes at galactic centers. For galaxies with Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), it is likely that the sBHs reside in a disk. We study the formation of sBH binaries via…
The merger rate of black hole binaries inferred from the detections in the first Advanced LIGO science run, implies that a stochastic background produced by a cosmological population of mergers will likely mask the primordial…
We study the population properties of merging binary black holes in the second LIGO--Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog assuming they were all formed dynamically in gravitationally bound clusters. Using a phenomenological population…
There is some weak evidence that the black hole merger named GW190521 had a non-zero eccentricity. In addition, the component black holes' masses exceeded the limit predicted by stellar evolution. The large masses can be explained by…
The heaviest black holes discovered through gravitational waves have masses that are difficult to explain with current standard stellar models. This discrepancy may be due to a series of hierarchical mergers, where the observed black holes…
The astrophysical origin of binary black hole mergers discovered by LIGO and Virgo remains uncertain. Efforts to reconstruct the processes that lead to mergers typically rely on either astrophysical models with fixed parameters, or…