Related papers: Where did Heavy Binaries Go? Gravitational-wave Po…
The vast majority of massive binary systems in the universe is evidently unsuited to produce merging binary black holes. However, several narrow evolutionary paths of isolated massive binaries towards this goal have recently been…
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…
If binaries consisting of two 100 Msun black holes exist they would serve as extraordinarily powerful gravitational-wave sources, detectable to redshifts of z=2 with the advanced LIGO/Virgo ground-based detectors. Large uncertainties about…
Hierarchical mergers of black holes are proposed as a mechanism to explain the observations of binary black holes with component masses between $\sim 50M_{\odot}\hbox{--}130M_{\odot}$ by LIGO/Virgo, often referred to as "upper mass gap". We…
Binary black hole mergers encode information about their environment and the astrophysical processes that led to their formation. Measuring the redshift dependence of their merger rate will help probe the formation and evolution of galaxies…
We use direct-summation N-body integrations to follow the evolution of binary black holes at the centers of galaxy models with large, constant-density cores. Particle numbers as large as 400K are considered. The results are compared with…
Making use of a new N-body model to describe the evolution of a moderate-size globular cluster we investigate the characteristics of the population of black holes within such a cluster. This model reaches core-collapse and achieves a peak…
The observed binary black hole (BBH) mergers indicate a large Galactic progenitor population continuously evolving from large orbital separations and low gravitational wave (GW) frequencies to the final merger phase. We investigate the…
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 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…
We investigate the dynamics and gravitational-wave (GW) emission in the binary merger of equal-mass black holes as obtained from numerical relativity simulations. Results from the evolution of three sets of initial data are explored in…
Estimates of the source parameters of gravitational-wave (GW) events produced by compact binary mergers rely on theoretical models for the GW signal. We present the first frequency-domain model for inspiral, merger and ringdown of the GW…
We present the first fully relativistic longterm numerical evolutions of three equal-mass black holes in a system consisting of a third black hole in a close orbit about a black-hole binary. We find that these close-three-black-hole systems…
Gravitational waves (GWs) have revealed surprising properties of binary black hole (BBH) populations, but there is still mystery surrounding how these compact objects evolve. We apply Bayesian inference and an efficient method to calculate…
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…
We present results on the mass, spin, and redshift distributions with phenomenological population models using the ten binary black hole mergers detected in the first and second observing runs completed by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo.…
The growing population of binary black holes (BBHs) observed by gravitational wave detectors is a potential Rosetta stone for understanding their formation channels. Here, we use an upgraded version of our semi-analytic codes {\sc…
In the last stages of a black hole merger, the binary can experience a recoil due to asymmetric emission of gravitational radiation. Recent numerical relativity simulations suggest that the recoil velocity can be as high as a few thousands…
The population of the observed gravitational wave events encodes unique information on the formation and evolution of stellar-mass black holes, from the underlying astrophysical processes to the large-scale dynamics of the Universe. We use…
With the release of the fourth LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA gravitational-wave catalog (GWTC-4), we are starting to gain a detailed view of the population of merging binary black holes. The formation channels of these black holes is not clearly…