activity
20172026
most citedThe evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates of LIGO/Virgo binary black holes

364 citations · 1.1k across the 33 of their papers we have counts for

collaborators

35 papers

astro-ph.HE2026

Dynamical pairing in gravitational wave populations

Fabio Antonini, Aleksandra Olejak, Isobel Romero-Shaw +1

Binary black holes formed dynamically in star clusters are often associated with nearly equal-mass pairing. We show that this expectation is incomplete. The more general prediction…

astro-ph.HE2026

Mass and spin properties of black-hole mergers reveal formation in triples

Jakob Stegmann, Aleksandra Olejak

Deciphering the formation channels of the observed binary black hole mergers remains a central open problem in gravitational-wave astronomy. With hundreds of detections, the inferr…

astro-ph.HE2026

Evolution of Main Sequence Stars Transferring Mass to a Supermassive Black Hole

Andrey Sandomirsky, Re'em Sari, Aleksandra Olejak +1

We consider main-sequence stars orbiting close to a supermassive black hole (SMBH), which are potential gravitational wave (GW) sources for LISA if their orbital periods are of the…

astro-ph.HE2026

Distinct spin properties and astrophysical origin of low mass binary black holes in gravitational wave data

Elizabeth Flanagan, Jakob Stegmann, Isobel Romero-Shaw +3

We analyze the effective-spin distribution of binary black hole mergers in GWTC-5.0 as a function of primary black hole mass using hierarchical Bayesian inference. We model the pop…

astro-ph.HE2026

Binary Evolution Can Mimic the Pair-Instability Mass Gap in Black Hole Mergers

Aleksandra Olejak, Jakob Stegmann

The recent O4 catalogs from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, which significantly increased the number of gravitational-wave (GW) detections, reveal features with potentially imp…

astro-ph.HE2026

Remnant recoil and host environments of GWTC-4.0 binary black-hole mergers

Joan Llobera-Querol, Eleanor Hamilton, Neha Singh +8

Determining the astrophysical origin of binary black holes and whether merger remnants are retained in their birth environments is essential for understanding hierarchical mergers…

astro-ph.HE2025★ 12 cited

Gravitational-wave Observations Suggest Most Black Hole Mergers Form in Triples

Jakob Stegmann, Fabio Antonini, Aleksandra Olejak +4

The spin-orbit tilt angles of merging stellar-mass black holes provide key insights into their astrophysical origin. Non-parametric population modelling of The LIGO, Vir…

astro-ph.HE2025

Non-conservative Mass Transfer as a Formation Channel for Gaia Black Hole System

Aleksandra Olejak, Jakub Klencki, Alejandro Vigna-Gomez +6

The detected Gaia systems hosting compact objects challenge standard models of binary star evolution. In particular, if the observed black hole (BH) systems evolved in isolation, t…

astro-ph.HE2025

Self-lensing binaries as probes of Supernova physics

Grzegorz Wiktorowicz, Matthew Middleton, Aleksandra Olejak +3

Self-lensing (SL) in binary systems has the potential to provide a unique observational window into the Galactic population of compact objects. Using the and C…

astro-ph.HE2025★ 20 cited

Resolving Black Hole Family Issues Among the Massive Ancestors of Very High-Spin Gravitational-Wave Events Like GW231123

Jakob Stegmann, Aleksandra Olejak, Selma E. de Mink

The latest detection of GW231123, a binary black hole (BH) merger with exceptionally large masses and high spins for the incoming components, has been suggested as a smoking gun fo…

astro-ph.HE2025

Spins of Black Holes in X-ray Binaries and the Tension with the Gravitational Wave Measurements

Andrzej A. Zdziarski, Gregoire Marcel, Alexandra Veledina +2

We review current challenges in understanding the values and origin of the spins of black holes in binaries. Thanks to recent advances in astrophysical instrumentation, the spins c…

astro-ph.HE2025

Estimating the binary neutron star merger rate density evolution with Einstein Telescope

Neha Singh, Tomasz Bulik, Aleksandra Olejak

The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a proposed third-generation, wide-band gravitational wave (GW) detector which will have an improved detection sensitivity in low frequencies, leading…

astro-ph.HE2025★ 9 cited

A fundamental limit to how close binary systems can get via stable mass transfer shapes the properties of binary black hole mergers

Jakub Klencki, Philipp Podsiadlowski, Norbert Langer +4

Mass transfer in binary systems is the key process in the formation of various classes of objects, including merging binary black holes (BBHs) and neutron stars. Orbital evolution…

astro-ph.HE2025

Supermassive black holes stripping a subgiant star down to its helium core: a new type of multi-messenger source for LISA

Aleksandra Olejak, Jakob Stegmann, Selma E. de Mink +3

Some stars orbiting supermassive black holes (SMBH) are expected to undergo a gravitational-wave (GW)-driven inspiral and initiate mass transfer on nearly circular orbits. However,…

astro-ph.SR2025★ 9 cited

Prompt stellar and binary black hole mergers in tight triples: Insights from chemically homogeneous evolution

Alejandro Vigna-Gómez, Evgeni Grishin, Jakob Stegmann +7

Short-period massive binary stars are predicted to undergo chemically homogeneous evolution (CHE), making them prime candidates for producing binary black holes (BBHs) that may mer…

astro-ph.HE2025★ 6 cited

X-ray emission from helium star+black hole binaries as probes of tidally induced spin-up of second-born black holes

Koushik Sen, Aleksandra Olejak, Sambaran Banerjee

Tidally induced spin-up of stripped helium stars in short-period (<\,1\,d) binaries with black holes has been presented as one of the possible mechanisms to reproduce the high-spin…

astro-ph.HE2024★ 1 cited

On the effective spin-mass ratio relation of binary black hole mergers that evolved in isolation

Sambaran Banerjee, Aleksandra Olejak

The ground-based measurement of gravitational waves (GW) from merging binary black holes (BBH) allows independent determination of spins of stellar-remnant black holes (BH). The ob…

astro-ph.SR2024

Stripped helium-star and compact object binaries in coeval populations -- predictions based on detailed binary evolution models

Chen Wang, Julia Bodensteiner, Xiao-Tian Xu +9

Massive stars mainly form in close binaries, where their mutual interactions can profoundly alter their evolutionary paths. Evolved binaries consisting of a massive OB-type main-se…

astro-ph.HE2024★ 22 cited

Residual eccentricity as a systematic uncertainty on the formation channels of binary black holes

Giulia Fumagalli, Isobel Romero-Shaw, Davide Gerosa +3

Resolving the formation channel(s) of merging binary black holes is a key goal in gravitational-wave astronomy. The orbital eccentricity is believed to be a precious tracer of the…

astro-ph.HE2024★ 30 cited

Unequal-mass, highly-spinning binary black hole mergers in the stable mass transfer formation channel

Aleksandra Olejak, Jakub Klencki, Xiao-Tian Xu +3

The growing database of gravitational-wave (GW) detections with the binary black holes (BHs) merging in the distant Universe contains subtle insights into their formation scenarios…

astro-ph.GA2023★ 7 cited

Astrometric mass measurement of compact companions in binary systems with Gaia

Yilun Wang, Shilong Liao, Nicola Giacobbo +3

For binary systems with an unseen primary and a luminous secondary, the astrometric wobble of the secondary could be used to study the primary. With Gaia, it is possible to measure…

astro-ph.HE2023★ 12 cited

Symmetry breaking in merging binary black holes from young massive clusters and isolated binaries

Sambaran Banerjee, Aleksandra Olejak, Krzysztof Belczynski

Properties of the to-date-observed binary black hole (BBH) merger events suggest a preference towards spin-orbit aligned mergers. Naturally, this has caused widespread interest and…

astro-ph.GA2022★ 4 cited

MOCCA-Survey Database: Extra Galactic Globular Clusters. III. The population of black holes in Milky Way and Andromeda-like galaxies

A. Leveque, M. Giersz, A. Askar +2

In this work, we investigate the black hole (BH) population of globular clusters (GCs) in Milky Way- (MW) and Andromeda- (M31) like galaxies. We combine the population synthesis co…

astro-ph.HE2022★ 59 cited

The Effect of Supernova Convection On Neutron Star and Black Hole Masses

Chris L. Fryer, Aleksandra Olejak, Krzysztof Belczynski

Our understanding of the convective-engine paradigm driving core-collapse supernovae has been used for 2 decades to predict the remnant mass distribution from stellar collapse. The…