Gravitational Wave Signatures of Dynamically Formed Black Hole Binaries

Zhong-Zhi Xianyu (Harvard)

May 22, 2019

–

Abstract: ow that LIGO has revealed the existence of a large number of binary black holes, identifying their origin becomes an important challenge. For dynamically formed binaries which might reside in dense environments such as galactic centers or globular clusters, the binary orbits could possess observably large eccentricity at LIGO and future gravitational wave detectors. Measuring the eccentricity distribution accurately could help us probe the background and the formation of the mergers. I will describe an analytical approach to predict the eccentricity distribution in a dynamical channel with three-body interactions. Furthermore, I will show that the third-body-induced barycenter motion of the binaries and the eccentricity variations might be observable in future space gravitational wave detectors such as LISA which could provide direct information about the black hole binary environments and otherwise invisible ambient mass.