MG15 - Talk detail

Back to previous page

 Participant

Institution

Session

Accepted

Yes

Order

Time

Talk

Title

Abstract

In this talk I will summarise the most promising sources of GWs to be detected by the space-borne Observatory LISA. I will focus on the gravitational capture of a compact object by a massive black hole. This process probe gravity in the strong regime. There has not been any other mission conceived, planned or even thought of ever that can do the science that we can do with them. I will (try to) avoid technical terms and focus on the broad picture.

Pdf file

Session

Accepted

Yes

Order

Time

Talk

Title

Abstract

Binaries of stellar-mass black holes are among the most interesting sources for ground-based detectors, and have constituted the first detections. In this talk I will show that there is a selection effect for ground-based detectors, which should predominantly observe binaries of black holes with (1) large, similar masses, (2) low spins and (3) low eccentricities. "Hyperstellar" black holes (HSBs) (i.e. black holes with masses larger than the nominal 10M? are predicted to be principally observed with an associated low value for the spin, typically of a<0.5, regardless of the formation channel. Also, when two HSBs build a binary, each of the spin magnitudes is also low, and the detection is mostly of binary members with similar masses. To address the distribution of the eccentricities of HSB binaries in dense stellar systems, I have used a large suite of dedicated three-body scattering experiments that include binary-single interactions and long-lived hierarchical systems with a highly accurate integrator, including relativistic corrections up to O(1/c^5). The results show that most sources in the detector band mainly have nearly zero eccentricities.

Pdf file

Back to previous page