Merging Black Holes of Any Size and Hierarchy

by Giacomo Fragione (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Wednesday 22 May 2019, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi

The recent discovery of gravitational waves has opened new horizons for physics. Current and upcoming missions promise to shed light on black holes of every size, from stellar mass sizes up to supermassive black holes which reside in galactic nuclei. The astrophysical origin of these mergers is among the most puzzling open questions of our time. I will show how the rich dynamics in galactic nuclei and star clusters catalyzes black hole mergers of any size in hierarchical systems, and make prediction on their merger rate through cosmic time. Finally, I will also discuss how LIGO/Virgo, LISA and other instruments will be able to shed light on the origin of black hole mergers.

Seminario di interesse anche per studenti delle LM 17 e 58 e dei dottorati in Fisica e Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science.