Andrea Antonelli

Andrea Antonelli

Gravitational-wave astrophysicist: interested in gravity, astrophysics of black holes, and statistical analysis.

Blog posts

2022

A polynomial regression model for the loudness of massive black-hole binaries

Published:

Black holes are abundant in the Universe and they come in different sizes, from those as massive as our Sun to those as massive as the Milky Way. The most massive reside at the centre of galaxies and go by the name of supermassive black holes. Discerning their origin is a key challenge of gravitational-wave astrophysics (and an overall cool topic to spend time contemplating!). It has been suggested that supermassive black holes could be formed from the collisions of smaller, but still massive black holes. The latter have been dubbed intermediate-mass black holes, and they have not yet been detected as they reside in frequency bands that elude both gravitational and electromagnetic observations. Read more

Predicting the elusive origin of black holes in binaries

Published:

In the 20th century, black holes have transitioned from being but a mathematical curiosity pointed out by Karl Schwarzschild in the trenches of World War I to an observational feature that holds the potential to reshape our understanding of the Cosmos. Thanks to the observations of light ejected from the vicinity of black holes, we now know that black holes constitute the endpoint of the life of very massive stars, that they harbour in the centre of most galaxies, that they act as an engine that fuels the rotation of galaxies, and that they make for an excellent background for the movie Interstellar. Our understanding of how we got here, on Earth, a mere 14 billions years after the Big Bang, cannot be disentangled from our understanding of the birth and evolution of black holes. Yet, we do not know why black holes are so abundant in the Universe. Read more

An A/B test for biased gravitational-wave signals

Published:

One of the most astonishing features of gravitational-wave (GW) data analysis studies is that we can reconstruct the evolutionary history of the black holes or neutron stars that generate them. By now, large collaborations routinely inspect signals in search of the parameters that best describe these sources. The most sought after parameters are the masses and the spins (metrics of rotation) of the celestial objects, which maintain traces of their distribution in the Universe and thus evolution. Read more

A Fisher matrix for gravitational-wave population inference

Published:

Population analyses with gravitational-wave (GW) data are hard and computationally expensive, but crucial for the future of GW astrophysics. In our recent paper, we have taken a step back and thought about alternative ways to estimate the precision on distribution parameters that would better lend themselves to quick and precise forecast estimates. Read more

The impact of relativistic corrections on the detectability of dark-matter spikes with gravitational waves

Published:

Today Nick’s first paper has been posted to the arXiv. Congratulations, Nick! It has been proposed that clumps of dark matter (DM) with extremely high density could grow at the centre of galactic cores under the influence of their supermassive black holes (SMBH). Such a concentration of matter leads to observable features that could hopefully elucidate the nature of DM, and that are currently being looked for in the electromagnetic spectrum. Read more

2021

Ends and beginnings

Published:

I just defended my PhD thesis and thus concluded a big chapter of my life, and surely of my academic life. I want to thank all the people in Potsdam for the great years, the banter and, of course, the amazing research we carried out. Now a well deserved vacation, and onto a new adventure in Baltimore! Read more