Related papers: Performing a theoretically robust Ryan test using …
Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) are important sources for space-borne gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Such a source normally consists of a stellar-mass black hole (BH) and a Kerr supermassive BH (SMBH), but recent astrophysical…
We consider the formation of binary intermediate black holes (BIMBH) in globular clusters (GC), which could happen either in situ or due to the mergers between clusters. We simulate the evolution of the BIMBH orbit (and its subsequent…
Inspirals of stellar mass compact objects into massive black holes are an important source for future gravitational wave detectors such as Advanced LIGO and LISA. Detection of these sources and extracting information from the signal relies…
We perform Bayesian analysis of gravitational-wave signals from non-spinning, intermediate-mass black-hole binaries (IMBHBs) with observed total mass, $M_{\mathrm{obs}}$, from $50\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ to $500\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and mass ratio…
Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) have masses of about 100 to 100,000 solar masses. They remain elusive. Observing IMBHs in present-day globular clusters (GCs) would validate a formation channel for seed black holes in the early…
One of the open problems in developing binary black hole (BBH) waveforms for gravitational wave astronomy is to model the intermediate mass ratio regime and connect it to the extreme mass ratio regime. A natural approach is to employ the…
Observational evidence has been mounting for the existence of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs, 10^2-10^5 Msun), but observing them at all, much less constraining their masses, is very challenging. In one theorized formation channel,…
The theory of general relativity (GR) is the standard framework for the description of gravitation and the geometric structure of spacetime. With the recent advancement of observational instruments, it has become possible to probe the…
We describe a method by which gravitational wave observations of eccentric binary systems could be used to test General Relativity's prediction that gravitational waves are dispersionless. We present our results in terms of the graviton…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) have been proposed to explain at least a portion of dark matter. Observations have put strong constraints on PBHs in terms of the fraction of dark matter which they can represent, $f_{\rm PBH}$, across a wide…
Our Galactic Center, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is believed to harbour a supermassive black hole (BH), as suggested by observations tracking individual orbiting stars. Upcoming sub-millimetre very-long-baseline-interferometry (VLBI) images of…
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…
We study binary systems in which a stellar mass compact object spirals into a massive black hole, known as extreme mass ratio inspirals, in scenarios with a new fundamental scalar field. Earlier work has shown that, in most interesting such…
Recent observations and stellar dynamics simulations suggest that thousand solar mass black holes can form in compact massive young star clusters. Any such clusters in the bulge of their host galaxy will spiral to the center within a few…
Einstein's theory of General Relativity is one of the pillars of modern physics. For decades, the theory has been mainly tested in the weak field regime with experiments in the Solar System and observations of binary pulsars. Thanks to a…
Intermediate-mass ratio inspirals (IMRIs) formed by stellar-mass compact objects orbiting intermediate-mass black holes will be detected by future gravitational wave (GW) observatories like TianQin, LISA, and AION. We study a set of 100…
We construct a fully analytic, general relativistic, nonspinning black hole binary spacetime that approximately solves the vacuum Einstein equations everywhere in space and time for black holes sufficiently well separated. The metric is…
The gravitational wave observations of colliding black holes have opened a new window into the unexplored extreme gravity sector of physics, where the gravitational fields are immensely strong, non-linear, and dynamical. 10 binary black…
Thanks to the recent discoveries of gravitational wave signals from binary black hole mergers by Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory and Advanced Virgo, the genuinely strong-field dynamics of spacetime can now be…
Astrophysical tests of general relativity belong to two categories: 1) "internal", i.e. consistency tests within the theory (for example, tests that astrophysical black holes are indeed described by the Kerr solution and its perturbations),…