Unveiling the Universe's Expansion: Black Hole Collisions, Gravitational Waves, and Gravitational Lensing

New research suggests that black hole mergers, which produce gravitational waves, could occur in the dense gas disks surrounding quasars. Computer simulations show that stellar-mass black holes can be dragged into these gas disks and forced into binary systems through gravitational interactions. The simulations also reveal that the gas reduces the speed of the black holes, allowing them to remain gravitationally bound and potentially merge. If a significant number of observed gravitational wave events are caused by this phenomenon, it could provide a direct association between quasars and gravitational wave sources in the sky.