Dear Colleagues,

Galactic nuclei and the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that they often contain have received much attention in the last decade, especially with the recent detection of gravitational waves (GWs) from mergers of stellar-mass BHs that could reside in these systems. One particularly interesting consideration is that an SMBH can secularly perturb and accelerate the merger of stellar-mass BH binaries orbiting around it through the (eccentric) von Zeipel-Lidov-Kozai mechanism. Although the latter mechanism has been studied in the literature before, many complications have been often ignored, including interactions of the binary with other stars in the galactic nucleus (e.g., through processes known as resonant relaxation, and through triaxiality of the cluster), and pre-compact object stellar and binary evolution.

The goal of this Special Issue is to consolidate recent advances in the field of binary dynamics and evolution. Issue topics include, but are not limited to:

1. gravitational dynamics of binaries near SMBHs

2. perturbations from other stars and compact objects (including fly-bys, correlated encounters, and non-spherically-symmetric potentials)

3. the impact of stellar evolution

4. gravitational wave signals from binaries near SMBHs

5. other implications of binary mergers such as supernovae and blue straggler formation

Dr. Adrian Hamers
Prof. Dr. Roberto Capuzzo Dolcetta
Guest Editors

References

1. Binary Dynamics Near a Massive Black Hole
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ApJ...700.1933H/abstract

2. Greatly Enhanced Merger Rates of Compact-object Binaries in Non-spherical Nuclear Star Clusters
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ApJ...846..146P/abstract

3. Black Hole Mergers in Galactic Nuclei Induced by the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...856..140H/abstract

4. Eccentric Black Hole Gravitational-wave Capture Sources in Galactic Nuclei: Distribution of Binary Parameters
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...860....5G/abstract

5. Black hole and neutron star mergers in galactic nuclei
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019MNRAS.488...47F/abstract

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• (Supermassive) black holes
• galactic nuclei
• gravitational dynamics
• stellar and binary evolution
• gravitational waves
• cluster dynamics