Related papers: Microquasar-AGN-GRB Connections
Stellar mass, binary black hole (BBH) mergers dominates the sources of gravitational wave (GW) events so far detected by the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK) experiment. The origin of these BBHs is unknown, and no electromagnetic (EM) counterpart has…
The detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes with masses $\sim\,80-150\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ suggests that some proportion of black hole binary systems form hierarchically in dense astrophysical environments, as most stellar…
In the last decade, a combination of high sensitivity, high spatial resolution observations and of coordinated multi-wavelength surveys has revolutionized our view of extra-galactic black hole (BH) astrophysics. We now know that…
Ultracompact objects with photonspheres are known to mimic many observational features of black holes. It has been suggested that anomalous tidal heating or the presence of resonances in gravitational wave signals would be a clear imprint…
Among the most extreme objects in the Universe, active galactic nuclei (AGN) are luminous centers of galaxies where a black hole feeds on surrounding matter. The variability patterns of the light emitted by an AGN contain information about…
Accreting supermassive black hole binaries are powerful multimessenger sources emitting both gravitational and EM radiation. Understanding the accretion dynamics of these systems and predicting their distinctive EM signals is crucial to…
We construct a family of non-supersymmetric extremal black holes and their horizonless microstate geometries in four dimensions. The black holes can have finite angular momentum and an arbitrary charge-to-mass ratio, unlike their…
The dense and gaseous environments of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can catalyze repeated mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs), potentially explaining the high-mass tail of binary black hole (BBH) mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA…
We investigate the collapsar scenario for the long gamma ray bursts. The energetics % of explosions in the $\gamma$-ray band are consistent with the binding energy of a progenitor star. The events duration times, lightcurve profiles,…
This a particularly exciting time for gravitational wave physics. Ground-based gravitational wave detectors are now operating at a sensitivity such that gravitational radiation may soon be directly detected, and recently several groups have…
In large scale cosmological hydrodynamic simulations simplified sub-grid models for gas accretion onto black holes and AGN feedback are commonly used. Such models typically depend on various free parameters, which are not well constrained.…
Early-time X-ray observations of GRBs with the Swift satellite have revealed a more complicated phenomenology than was known before. In particular, the presence of flaring activity on a wide range of time scales probably requires late-time…
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…
Reverberation-mapping campaigns have revolutionized our understanding of AGN. They have allowed the direct determination of the broad-line region size, enabled mapping of the gas distribution around the central black hole, and are starting…
We propose that a nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB) or GRB-like (old, single and short-lived) pulsar/supernova remnant/microquasar about 10^{5-6} years ago may be responsible for the excesses of cosmic-ray positrons and electrons recently…
The immense power of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) make them ideal probes of the early universe. By using absorption lines in the afterglows of high-redshift GRBs, astronomers can study the evolution of metals in the early universe. With an…
If intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) grow efficiently in gas disks around supermassive black holes, their host active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks should exhibit myriad observational signatures. Gap-opening IMBHs in AGN disks can…
Gravitational wave observations will probe non-linear gravitational interactions and thus enable strong tests of Einstein's theory of general relativity. We present a numerical relativity study of the late inspiral and merger of binary…
Black holes (BHs) play a major role in the structural and dynamical evolutions of Globular Clusters (GCs). Several recent works searched for BHs in Galactic GCs using scaling relations derived from numerical simulations. However, the…
The detection of gravitational waves from the merger of binary black holes by the LIGO Collaboration has opened a new window to astrophysics. With the sensitivities of ground based detectors in the coming years we can only detect the local…