Astro Seminar: Connar Rowan

Speaker: Connar Rowan (NBIA)

Title: Active galactic nuclei as a source of gravitational waves 

Abstract: Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) offer a promising environment to bring black holes together and merge them, through various gaseous and dynamical processes. The AGN disc acts as a catalyst that helps black holes to meet, bind together and drives them to merge. I will provide an overview of how the channel works, covering the many ways in which the AGN disc affects the dynamics of the surrounding black hole population. In doing so, I will highlight the current gaps in our understanding that give rise to the high degree of uncertainty currently surrounding the channel. I will conclude with a summary of the current predictions of the channel and how we can potentially break observational degeneracies between mergers from AGN and alternative channels at the population level.