Related papers: Evidence for Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
Supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary systems are unavoidable outcomes of galaxy mergers. Their dynamics encode information about their formation and growth, the composition of their host galactic nuclei, the evolution of galaxies, and the…
The process whereby the supermassive black holes populating the centers of galaxies have been assembled remains to be established, with the relative importance of seeds provided by collapsed Population-III stars, black holes formed in…
The majority of massive stars are found in close binaries which: (i) are prone to merge and (ii) are accompanied by another distant tertiary star (triples). Here, we study the evolution of the stellar post-merger binaries composed of the…
Using the black hole merger rate inferred from LIGO, we calculate the abundance of tightly bound binary black holes in the Milky Way galaxy. Binaries with a small semimajor axis ($\lesssim 10 R_\odot$) originate at larger separations…
Current simulations of the rate at which stellar-mass compact objects merge with supermassive black holes (called extreme mass ratio inspirals, or EMRIs) focus on two-body capture by emission of gravitational radiation. The gravitational…
We study the gravitational wave background produced from the formation and assembly of supermassive black holes within the cosmological paradigm of hierarchical structure formation. In particular, we focus on a supermassive black hole…
Supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries residing at the core of merging galaxies are recently found to be strongly affected by the rotation of their host galaxies. The highly eccentric orbits that form when the host is counterrotating emit…
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will detect gravitational-wave (GW) signals from merging supermassive black holes (BHs) with masses below $10^7$~M$_{\odot}$. It is thus of paramount importance to understand the orbital…
The predicted rate of binary black hole mergers from galactic fields can vary over several orders of magnitude and is extremely sensitive to the assumptions of stellar evolution. But in dense stellar environments such as globular clusters,…
Understanding the fate of merging supermassive black holes in galactic mergers, and the gravitational wave emission from this process, are important LISA science goals. To this end, we present results from numerical relativity simulations…
Galaxy centers are residing places for Super Massive Black Holes (SMBHs). Galaxy mergers bring SMBHs close together to form gravitationally bound binary systems which, if able to coalesce in less than a Hubble time, would be one of the most…
Some issues relevant for the formation of supermassive black holes are discused and estimates of the event rates for the emission of gravitational waves by coalescing supermassive black hole binaries are given. The models take into account…
All the physical processes involved in the formation, merging, and accretion history of massive black holes along the hierarchical build--up of cosmic structures are likely to leave an imprint on the gravitational waves detectable by future…
In spherical galaxies, binary supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have difficulty reaching sub-parsec separations due to depletion of stars on orbits that intersect the massive binary - the final-parsec problem. Galaxies that form via major…
Using high-resolution SPH numerical simulations, we investigate the effects of gas on the inspiral and merger of a massive black hole binary. This study is motivated by both observational and theoretical work that indicate the presence of…
Supermassive black hole binary mergers generate a stochastic gravitational wave background detectable by pulsar timing arrays. While the amplitude of this background is subject to significant uncertainties, the frequency dependence is a…
We compute the expected low-frequency gravitational wave signal from coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries at the center of galaxies. We follow the merging history of halos and associated holes via cosmological Monte Carlo…
Recent breakthroughs in the field of numerical relativity have led to dramatic progress in understanding the predictions of General Relativity for the dynamical interactions of two black holes in the regime of very strong gravitational…
Stellar mass black hole binaries have individual masses between 10-80 solar masses. These systems may emit gravitational waves at frequencies detectable at Megaparsec distances by space-based gravitational wave observatories. In a previous…
In current stellar evolutionary models, the occurrence of pair instability supernovae implies the lack of stellar black holes (BHs) with masses between about $[60, \, 120] \, \rm{M}_\odot$, resulting in the presence of an upper mass gap in…