October 7
Astrophysics of binary black holes near and far
Speaker: Prof. Sylvia Biscoveneau, Princeton
Abstract: More than ten years after their first direct detection, the catalog of gravitational-wave sources has grown to over 300 candidate binary black hole mergers. Analyses of this population as a whole are beginning to reveal new features and correlations that point back to the astrophysical processes shaping compact-object binary formation and evolution. Beneath this resolved population lies the astrophysical background of binary black hole mergers that are too weak to be observed individually, the detection of which would allow us to learn about the population of high-redshift binaries that are currently out of reach. In this talk, I will review the astrophysical insights gleaned from the latest catalog of mergers observed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detectors with an emphasis on black hole spin. I will conclude by describing efforts to detect the astrophysical background of unresolved sources and the implications of this search for our understanding of binary black hole populations.
Host: Prof. M. Coleman Miller