Carl Rodriguez
@carlrodriguez.bsky.social
Professor of astrophysics at UNC, studying colliding black holes, swarming stars, and other things that go bump in the night. Big fan of transit, biking, climbing, Durham NC, he/him
dynamics.unc.edu
dynamics.unc.edu
Very reasonable, but also what kind of theorist would I be if I waited for definitive results?
November 12, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Very reasonable, but also what kind of theorist would I be if I waited for definitive results?
I mean CITA has a bunch of money (at least by Canadian standards) so that probably helps. But yeah that’s still pretty wild.
November 12, 2025 at 5:20 PM
I mean CITA has a bunch of money (at least by Canadian standards) so that probably helps. But yeah that’s still pretty wild.
Or Mamdami. Or literally anyone with a pulse. Hell a rock with googly eyes would be preferable at this point.
November 10, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Or Mamdami. Or literally anyone with a pulse. Hell a rock with googly eyes would be preferable at this point.
It's wild to have such love for the game when you're bad at it though.
November 5, 2025 at 8:43 PM
It's wild to have such love for the game when you're bad at it though.
This was years ago: me, Fred Rasio, and Sourav Chatterjee vs Chris Belczynski, Dan Holz, and Stan Woosley that LIGO would detect something in the mass gap within the first 100 BBH mergers. Natalie Wolcover actually wrote about it (we won with GW190521)!
www.quantamagazine.org/possible-det...
www.quantamagazine.org/possible-det...
Possible Detection of a Black Hole So Big It ‘Should Not Exist’
Researchers have confirmed rumors of a black hole collision that challenges our ideas about how black holes form.
www.quantamagazine.org
October 28, 2025 at 4:46 PM
This was years ago: me, Fred Rasio, and Sourav Chatterjee vs Chris Belczynski, Dan Holz, and Stan Woosley that LIGO would detect something in the mass gap within the first 100 BBH mergers. Natalie Wolcover actually wrote about it (we won with GW190521)!
www.quantamagazine.org/possible-det...
www.quantamagazine.org/possible-det...
You know I'm not sure there were any bets on hierarchical mergers? Spins maybe (though I can't remember exactly).
Though now that you mention it, Holz and Woosley still owe me a bottle of wine from the last bet on the mass gap!
Though now that you mention it, Holz and Woosley still owe me a bottle of wine from the last bet on the mass gap!
October 28, 2025 at 4:28 PM
You know I'm not sure there were any bets on hierarchical mergers? Spins maybe (though I can't remember exactly).
Though now that you mention it, Holz and Woosley still owe me a bottle of wine from the last bet on the mass gap!
Though now that you mention it, Holz and Woosley still owe me a bottle of wine from the last bet on the mass gap!
For the most up-to-date predictions, check out this paper using CMC from CITA postdoc fellow Claire Ye: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXi...
Mass Distribution of Binary Black Hole Mergers from Young and Old Dense Star Clusters
Dense star clusters are thought to contribute significantly to the merger rates of stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration. We combine $N$-body dynamic mo...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
October 28, 2025 at 4:27 PM
For the most up-to-date predictions, check out this paper using CMC from CITA postdoc fellow Claire Ye: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXi...
This is fully consistent with our predictions going back almost 10 years at this point (our Cluster Monte Carlo models even make an appearance in the paper)!
October 28, 2025 at 4:25 PM
This is fully consistent with our predictions going back almost 10 years at this point (our Cluster Monte Carlo models even make an appearance in the paper)!
I'm gonna be so braggadocious this week y'all have no idea
October 28, 2025 at 4:17 PM
I'm gonna be so braggadocious this week y'all have no idea
Probably three: two black holes merged, then their daughter product found another black hole and merged again. From the paper:
October 28, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Probably three: two black holes merged, then their daughter product found another black hole and merged again. From the paper:
NEGATIVE CHI_EFFECTIVE
a man in a police uniform and tie is making a funny face and saying vindication !!! .
Alt: gif of Captain Holt saying Vindication
media.tenor.com
October 28, 2025 at 3:55 PM
NEGATIVE CHI_EFFECTIVE
Also one of them (GW241110) is the first binary black hole where the spins of the merging black holes are *anti-aligned* with the orbital angular momentum. That's a specific prediction of binaries formed in dense star clusters like globular clusters.
October 28, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Also one of them (GW241110) is the first binary black hole where the spins of the merging black holes are *anti-aligned* with the orbital angular momentum. That's a specific prediction of binaries formed in dense star clusters like globular clusters.
Space-filling shitposting
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Space-filling shitposting