Few-Body Dynamics & Gravitational-Wave Mergers: Binary-Single Encounters

This hybrid event forms part of the Royal Astronomical Society's Specialist Discussion Meeting (SDM) programme.
About this Event

Few-body dynamics as a gravitational-wave merge channel: The role of binary-single encounters

The first direct gravitational-wave detection in 2015 opened a new era in astrophysics. Since then, the catalogue of observed gravitational-wave events has expanded dramatically. These observations constitute a fertile ground for testing our understanding of the formation and origin of these black holes, and necessitate theoretical efforts to explain unpredicted events. Triple interactions, including binary-single interactions and hierarchical triples, are dominant as a formation channel for these black-hole binaries. In this meeting, we aim to bring together researchers working on the role of triple interactions in forming gravitational-wave mergers to discuss current knowledge, challenges, open questions, and future prospects.

Topics include:

• Eccentric mergers and eccentricity distributions of binaries;
• environmental effects on binary-single encounters, e.g., dense/sparse, gas-rich, or the influence of a nearby super-massive black hole;
• Chaotic binary-single encounters in clusters;
• Hierarchical mergers;
• Distinguishing between different formation channels;
• post-Newtonian and relativistic effects in binary-single encounters.

Schedule

Convenor

Mor Rozner

Photo Credit: Mor Rozner produced the image using Claude