Related papers: Galactic Black Hole Binaries: Multifrequency Conne…
The gravitational radiation produced by binary black holes during their inspiral, merger, and ringdown phases is a promising candidate for detection by the first or second generation of kilometer-scale interferometric gravitational wave…
X-ray variability of accreting black hole binaries is believed to be produced by the fluctuations propagating towards the compact object. Observations suggest the light curves in different energy bands are connected, but the fluctuations at…
High-mass X-ray binaries are fundamental in the study of stellar evolution, nucleosynthesis, structure and evolution of galaxies and accretion processes. Hard X-rays observations by INTEGRAL and Swift have broad- ened significantly our…
We explore spinning, precessing, unequal mass binary black holes to display the long term orbital angular momentum, $\vec{L}$, flip dynamics. We study two prototypical cases of binaries with mass ratios $q=1/7$ and $q=1/15$ and a misaligned…
Compact binary coalescences are the most promising sources of gravitational waves (GWs) for ground based detectors. Binary systems containing one or two spinning black holes are particularly interesting due to spin-orbit (and eventual…
The three X-ray states of active accretion in black-hole binaries have been re-defined to focus attention on different physical elements that may contribute radiation: the accretion disk, a jet, and a compact and radio-quiet corona.…
In this paper we perform a multi-messenger investigation of the efficiency of stellar scattering in tightening supermassive black hole binaries by jointly comparing models to the observed galaxy stellar core population and to results of…
Self-consistent vertical structure models together with non-LTE radiative transfer should produce spectra from accretion disks around black holes which differ from multitemperature blackbodies at levels which may be observed. High…
Black holes are by definition black, and therefore cannot be directly observed by using electromagnetic radiations. Convincing identification of black holes must necessarily depend on the identification of a very specially behaving matter…
The orbital motion of inspiralling and coalescing black hole binaries can be investigated using a variety of approximation schemes and numerical methods within general relativity: post-Newtonian expansions, black hole perturbation theory,…
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,…
The relativistically-broadened reflection spectrum, observed in both AGN and X-ray binaries, has proven to be a powerful probe of the properties of black holes and the environments in which they reside. Being emitted from the inner-most…
Current astrophysical research suggests that the most persistently luminous objects in the Universe are powered by the flow of matter through accretion disks onto black holes. Accretion disk systems are observed to emit copious radiation…
Precision tests of general relativity can be conducted by observing binary pulsars. Theories with massive fields exist to explain a variety of phenomena from dark energy to the strong CP problem. Existing pulsar binaries, such as the white…
Supermassive black hole binaries are the strongest gravitational wave sources in the universe. The systems most likely to be observed with pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) will have particularly high masses ($\gtrsim 10^9 M_\odot$), long periods…
Gravitational wave observations will be excellent tools for making precise measurements of processes that occur in very strong-field regions of spacetime. Extreme mass ratio systems, formed by the capture of a stellar mass body compact by a…
Gravitational waves deliver information in exquisite detail about astrophysical phenomena, among them the collision of two black holes, a system completely invisible to the eyes of electromagnetic telescopes. Models that predict…
In this chapter, I present the main X-ray observational characteristics of black-hole binaries and low magnetic field neutron-star binaries, concentrating on what can be considered similarities or differences, with particular emphasis on…
Thanks to aggressive campaigns of multi-wavelength observations of X-ray binaries in outbursts over the last decade or so, we have now reached a reasonable understanding of their radio phenomenology in response to changes in the global…
The estimation of a physical system's normal modes is a fundamental problem in physics. The quasi-normal modes of perturbed Kerr black holes, with their related spheroidal harmonics, are key examples, and have diverse applications in…