Related papers: Trails of clouds in binary black holes
The origin and formation of stellar-mass binary black holes remains an open question that can be addressed by precise measurements of the binary and orbital parameters from their gravitational-wave signal. Such binaries are expected to…
Supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries represent the main target for missions such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna and Pulsar Timing Arrays. The understanding of their dynamical evolution prior to coalescence is therefore crucial…
We present a new analytic study of the equilibrium and stability properties of close binary systems containing polytropic components. Our method is based on the use of ellipsoidal trial functions in an energy variational principle. We…
We present the results of a systematic study of the formation and evolution of binaries containing black holes and normal-star companions with a wide range of masses. We first reexamine the standard formation scenario for close black-hole…
Theoretically, bound binaries of massive black holes are expected as the natural outcome of mergers of massive galaxies. From the observational side, however, massive black hole binaries remain elusive. Velocity shifts between narrow and…
We present a simple model illustrating how a highly relativistic, compact object which is stable in isolation can be driven dynamically unstable by the tidal field of a binary companion. Our compact object consists of a test-particle in a…
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 past decade has transformed our ability to observe the Universe. Via gravitational waves, merging black holes and neutron stars can now be directly detected, offering unprecedented opportunities to test General Relativity and explore…
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,…
Binary black holes in which both spins are aligned with the binary's orbital angular momentum do not precess. However, the up-down configuration, in which the spin of the heavier (lighter) black hole is aligned (anti-aligned) with the…
The coalescence of two black holes generates gravitational waves that carry detailed information about the properties of those black holes and their binary configuration. The final coalescence cycles are in the form of a {\it ringdown}: a…
Based on a simple geometrical approach, we analyze the evolution of the Kozai-Lidov mechanism for stars around shrinking massive black hole binaries on circular orbits. We find that, due to a peculiar bifurcation pattern induced by the…
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…
Black hole superradiance, which only relies on gravitational interactions, can provide a powerful probe of the existence of ultralight bosons that are weakly coupled to ordinary matter. However, as a boson cloud grows through superradiance,…
Bosonic fields on rotating black hole spacetimes are subject to amplification by superradiance, which induces exponentially-growing instabilities (the `black hole bomb') in two scenarios: if the black hole is enclosed by a mirror, or if the…
The long-term evolution of massive black hole binaries at the centers of galaxies is studied in a variety of physical regimes, with the aim of resolving the ``final parsec problem,'' i.e., how black hole binaries manage to shrink to…
We explore the hardening of a massive black hole binary embedded in a circum-binary gas disc when the binary and the gas are coplanar and the gas is counter-rotating. The secondary black hole, revolving in the direction opposite to the gas,…
Dense stellar systems such as globular clusters are believed to harbor merging binary black holes (BHs). The evolution of such binaries is driven by interactions with other stars, most notably, binary-single interactions. Traditionally,…
We analyze 192 sets of binary black hole merger data in eccentric orbits obtained from RIT, decomposing the radiation energy into three distinct phases through time: inspiral, late inspiral to merger, and ringdown. Our investigation reveals…
The dynamical evolution of binaries of intermediate-massive black holes (IMBHs, massive black holes with a mass ranging between $10^2$ and $10^4 M_{\odot}$) in stellar clusters has recently received an increasing amount of attention. This…