Merging stellar-mass binary black holes

TL;DR

This paper reviews gravitational wave observations of stellar-mass black hole mergers, discusses their formation channels, and explores future prospects for gravitational-wave astronomy.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of current observations, theoretical models, and future outlooks for stellar-mass black hole mergers in gravitational-wave astronomy.

Findings

Multiple black hole merger events observed by LIGO and Virgo

Theoretical models predict various formation channels and rates

Prospects for future gravitational-wave detections and studies

Abstract

The LIGO and Virgo detectors have directly observed gravitational waves from mergers of pairs of stellar-mass black holes, along with a smaller number of mergers involving neutron stars. These observations raise the hope that compact object mergers could be used as a probe of stellar and binary evolution, and perhaps of stellar dynamics. This colloquium-style article summarises the existing observations, describes theoretical predictions for formation channels of merging stellar-mass black-hole binaries along with their rates and observable properties, and presents some prospects for gravitational-wave astronomy.