Weakly parametric approach to stochastic background inference in LISA

Gravitational waves from an eccentric population of primordial black holes orbiting Sgr

Primordial black holes (PBH), supposedly formed in the very early Universe, have been proposed as a possible viable dark matter candidate. In this work we characterize the expected gravitational wave (GW) losses from a population of PBHs orbiting Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the Galactic center (GC), and assess the signal detectability by the planned space-borne interferometer LISA and by the proposed next generation space-borne interferometer μ Ares . Assuming that PBHs indeed form...

GRMHD simulations of accretion flows onto unequal-mass, precessing massive binary black hole mergers

In this work, we use general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations to explore the effect of spin orientation on the dynamics of gas in the vicinity of merging black holes. We present a suite of eight simulations of unequal-mass, spinning black hole binaries embedded in magnetized clouds of matter. Each binary evolution covers approximately 15 orbits before the coalescence. The geometry of the accretion flows in the vicinity of the black holes is significantly altered by the orientatio...

Self-consistent modeling of metastable helium exoplanet transits

Absorption of stellar X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation in the upper atmosphere of close-in exoplanets can give rise to hydrodynamic outflows, which may lead to the gradual shedding of their primordial light element envelopes. Excess absorption by neutral helium atoms in the metastable 2 S-3 state [He I(2 S-3)], at similar to 10 830 angstrom, has recently emerged as a viable diagnostic of atmospheric escape. Here we present a public add-on module to the 1D photoionization hydrodyn...