Related papers: Loss cone: past, present and future
Recent numerical simulations reveal that the isothermal collapse of pristine gas in atomic cooling haloes may result in stellar binaries of supermassive stars with $M_* \gtrsim 10^4\ \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$. For the first time, we compute the…
The capture and gradual inspiral of stellar mass objects by a massive black hole at the centre of a galaxy has been proposed as one of the most promising source of gravitational radiation to be detected by LISA. Unfortunately rate estimates…
The next decade is expected to see the launch of one or more space based gravitational wave detectors: the European lead Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA); and one or more Chinese mission concepts, Taiji and TianQin. One of the…
Binary neutron-star mergers will predominantly produce black-hole remnants of mass $\sim 3-4\,M_{\odot}$, thus populating the putative \emph{low mass gap} between neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes. If these low-mass black holes are…
Supermassive black holes can capture or disrupt stars that come sufficiently close. This article reviews the dynamical processes by which stars or stellar remnants are placed onto loss-cone orbits and the implications for feeding rates. The…
The capture and inspiral of compact stellar masses into massive black holes is an important source of low-frequency gravitational waves (with frequencies of ~1-100mHz), such as those that might be detected by the planned Laser…
A number of scenarios have been proposed for the origin of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are found in the centres of most galaxies. Many such scenarios predict a high-redshift population of massive black holes (MBHs), with…
Joint gravitational-wave detections of stellar-mass black-hole binaries by ground- and space-based observatories will provide unprecedented opportunities for fundamental physics and astronomy. We present a semianalytic method to estimate…
Now that LIGO has revealed the existence of a large number of binary black holes, identifying their origin becomes an important challenge. They might originate in more isolated regions of the galaxy or alternatively they might reside in…
Using a population synthesis approach, we compute the total merger rate in the local Universe for double neutron stars, double black holes, and black hole -- neutron star binaries. These compact binaries are the prime source candidates for…
Double compact objects (neutron stars and black holes) found in binaries with small orbital separations are known to spiral in and are expected to coalesce eventually because of the emission of gravitational waves. Such inspiral and merger…
The propagation speed of gravitational waves, $c_T$, has been tightly constrained by the binary neutron star merger GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterpart, under the assumption of a frequency-independent $c_T$. Drawing upon arguments…
Ground-based gravitational-wave detectors like the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA experiments now regularly witness gravitational waves from compact binary mergers: the relativistic collisions of neutron stars and/or stellar-mass…
The Galaxy is suspected to contain hundreds of millions of binary white dwarf systems, a large fraction of which will have sufficiently small orbital period to emit gravitational radiation in band for space-based gravitational wave…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
We argue that the recent groundbreaking discovery by Badenes et al. (2009) of a nearby (~50 pc) white dwarf-neutron star (or black hole) binary (SDSS 1257+5428) with a merger timescale ~500 Myr implies that such systems are common; we…
We use a self-consistent Monte Carlo treatment of stellar dynamics to investigate black hole binaries that are dynamically ejected from globular clusters to determine if they will be gravitational wave sources. We find that many of the…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
Many scenarios have been proposed for the origin of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are found in the centres of most galaxies. Many of these formation scenarios predict a high-redshift population of intermediate-mass black holes…
The capture of compact stellar remnants by galactic black holes provides a unique laboratory for exploring the near horizon geometry of the Kerr spacetime, or possible departures from general relativity if the central cores prove not to be…