Proefschrift
On a quest to discover where stellar-mass black holes merge: testing the AGN binary formation channel with spatial correlation analyses
The physical origin of the dozens of stellar-mass binaries, the mergers of which have been detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration via gravitational waves, is still unknown.
- Auteur
- N. Veronesi
- Datum
- 08 november 2024
- Links
- Thesis in Leiden Repository
The accretion discs that fuel Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) represent potential sites of efficient binary formation, due to the interaction between the compact objects and the gaseous environment. I obtained the first observational constraints on the fractional contribution of the so-called "AGN channel" to the total merger rate by investigating whether there is or not a spatial correlation between the localisation volumes of gravitational-wave detections and the positions of potential hosts. I find that currently available data enable methods like the one discussed in my thesis to put constraints as stringent as the ones that come from analyses that require assumptions on the physical model of the binary formation scenario. I conclude, at a 95 per cent credibility level, that no more than one every five detected gravitational wave event has originated in an un-obscured AGN brighter than 10^44.5 erg/s.