After the discovery of gravitational waves (GWs, Abbott et al. 2017), the LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave (GW) interferometers have detected dozens of binary black hole (BBH) mergers. Various models exist to successfully explain the merger rate and evolution and properties of black hole binaries: they may originate from massive star binaries, or from dynamical interactions in dense stellar environments, such as globular clusters (GCs). Although model predictions differ, the data does not yet allow us to discriminate between formation channels. There is so far no clear dominant formation channel. The relative contribution of each of these channels could be anywhere between 20-90%.
A unique prediction of the dynamical channel is the existence of BBH with measurable eccentricity (i.e., at the LIGO-Virgo frequencies). In this project you will make predictions for the properties of eccentric mergers that occur in GCs as the result of GW capture. You will use the model predictions for the evolution of GCs and their BHs (Antonini & Gieles 2020a,b), and combine these with recipes for mergers following GW capture in single-single and single-binary encounters (Samsing et al. 2020). The goal of this project is to quantify where these eccentric BBH mergers lie in the mass-eccentric diagram.