Studying black hole populations with gravitational-wave observations

The first observations of gravitational waves emitted by merging binary black holes demonstrated the existence of black holes more massive than ever observed in our Galaxy. Future observations with ground-based interferometers such as Advanced LIGO and Virgo will probe the mass and spin distributions of black holes in various galactic environments and may also detect the stochastic gravitational-wave background from unresolved mergers. These measurements will provide a new tool for stellar and galaxy evolution studies. In the first part of this talk I will describe a cosmological framework for modeling the population of black holes and show which features of stellar evolution models can be constrained with future gravitational-wave observations. I will then discuss the stochastic background from unresolved binary black hole mergers and present the first predictions of the anisotropies of this background. In the second part of this talk I will discuss the prospects of detecting the stochastic gravitational wave background from super-massive black hole binaries that form when galaxies merge. I will argue that even under the most conservative assumptions this background will be detected in the coming years by Pulsar Timing Array experiments and possibly also by the space-based interferometer LISA.

Dates: 

Lundi, 4 juin, 2018 - 11:00 to 12:00

Salle / Local: 

APC483A

Nom/Prénom // Last name/First name: 

Irina Dvorkin

Affiliation: 

Albert Einstein Institute

Equipe(s) organisatrice(s) / Organizing team(s): 

  • Cosmologie