PhD defence

On a quest to discover where stellar-mass black holes merge

• N. Veronesi

Date

Friday 8 November 2024

Time

13:00 - 14:00 hour

Address

Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden

Supervisor(s)

• Prof.dr. E.M. Rossi
• Prof.dr. K.H. Kuijken
• dr. S. van Velzen

Summary

Almost one hundred of stellar-mass black hole mergers have been detected via gravitational waves in the last ten years. However, the physical origin of these merging binary systems is still debated. One proposed formation scenario involves gaseous discs that surround the biggest black holes ever detected in the Universe, which have masses greater than millions of times the one of the Sun. In this environment the interaction with the gas might facilitate the formation of the binary systems the mergers of which have been detected. We test the connection between these potential host environments and the portions of Universe from which we have detected gravitational waves coming. We find that no more than one every five mergers have happened in a gaseous disc that surrounds a super-massive black hole. This result puts the first purely observational constraints on the physical origin of the black hole binaries so far detected through gravitational waves.

PhD dissertations

Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.

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