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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 63: Invited Overview Talks IV

T 63.1: Invited Overview Talk

Thursday, March 19, 2026, 11:00–11:30, AudiMax

Binary Black Hole Populations: Scientific Perspectives for the Einstein Telescope — •Michela Mapelli — Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Zentrum für Astronomie, Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

The fourth gravitational-wave transient catalog contains more than 200 binary compact-object merger candidates, the vast majority of which involve black holes. These data represent a genuine revolution in black hole science. In this talk, I will focus on the implications of these new observations for our understanding of the astrophysical formation of such systems across cosmic time. I will discuss the challenges of explaining the inferred black hole merger-rate density and of accounting for the most massive systems detected so far – with masses inside or above the pair-instability mass gap. In the second part of the talk, I will briefly touch upon the scientific prospects of next-generation detectors. The Einstein Telescope is expected to observe binary black hole mergers out to redshift z∼100. Together with LISA, it will open up the opportunity for multi-band gravitational-wave astronomy and will probe the largely uncharted territory of intermediate-mass black holes.

Keywords: astrophysical black holes; gravitational wave astronomy; Einstein Telescope; merger rate; numerical simulations