Related papers: Black Hole Mergers and Unstable Circular Orbits
In this paper, the second in a series of two, we justify two important assumptions on which the result is based that in course of a galaxy merger the slingshot ejection of bound stars is sufficiently efficient to allow a supermassive black…
Event horizons are the defining physical features of black hole spacetimes, and are of considerable interest in studying black hole dynamics. Here, we reconsider three techniques to localise event horizons in numerical spacetimes:…
In dense stellar environments, the merger products of binary black hole mergers may undergo additional mergers. These hierarchical mergers are predicted to have higher masses than the first generation of black holes made from stars. The…
Binary black holes which are both eccentric and undergo precession remain unexplored in numerical simulations. We present simulations of such systems which cover about 50 orbits at comparatively high mass ratios 5 and 7. The configurations…
Recently the possibility of detecting echoes of ringdown gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers was shown. The presence of echoes is expected if the black hole is surrounded by a mirror that reflects gravitational waves near the…
An exact and analytical solution, in four-dimensional general relativity, describing a collinear array of an arbitrary number of Kerr black holes inside an expanding bubble of nothing is built, thanks to the inverse scattering technique.…
[ABRIDGED] We study supermassive black hole binary mergers driven by angular momentum loss to small-scale gas discs. Such binaries form after major galaxy mergers, but their fate is unclear since hardening through stellar scattering becomes…
The inspiral and merger of binary black holes will likely involve black holes with both unequal masses and arbitrary spins. The gravitational radiation emitted by these binaries will carry angular as well as linear momentum. A net flux of…
Black holes described by the Kerr metric can have a theoretical maximum dimensionless spin parameter of $a_\bullet = 1$, but several effects may limit the maximum spin parameter in astrophysical systems. We perform general relativistic…
We study the long-term evolution of two or more stellar black holes (BHs) on initially separated but unstable circular orbits around a supermassive BH (SMBH). Such a close-packed orbital configuration can naturally arise from BH migrations…
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…
To describe a general bound binary black hole system, we need to consider orbital eccentricity and the misalignment of black holes' spin vectors with respect to the orbital angular momentum. While binary black holes produced through many…
Binary black hole mergers are among the most violent events in the Universe, leading to extreme warping of spacetime and copious emission of gravitational radiation. Even though black holes are the most compact objects they are not…
An important question in binary black hole mergers is to connect properties of the remnant black hole to those of the two initial black holes. These properties include not only the final mass and spin of the remnant, but also higher…
Rapid binary population synthesis codes are often used to investigate the evolution of compact-object binaries. They typically rely on analytical fits of single-star evolutionary tracks and parameterized models for interactive phases of…
We study the evolution of a massive black hole pair in a rotationally supported nuclear disc. The distributions of stars and gas mimic the nuclear region of a gas-rich galaxy merger remnant. Using high-resolution SPH simulations, we follow…
We present a formalism for constructing quasi-equilibrium binary black hole initial data suitable for numerical evolution. We construct quasi-equilibrium models by imposing an approximate helical Killing symmetry appropriate for…
Several improvements in numerical methods and gauge choice are presented that make it possible now to perform simulations of the merger and ringdown phases of "generic" binary black-hole evolutions using the pseudo-spectral evolution code…
A model for determining the dimensionless spin parameter and mass of the black hole remnant of black hole-neutron star mergers with arbitrary initial black hole spin angular momentum, binary mass ratio, and neutron star mass and cold…
We adapt a method of matching post-Newtonian and black-hole-perturbation theories on a timelike surface (which proved useful for understanding head-on black-hole-binary collisions) to treat equal-mass, inspiralling black-hole binaries. We…