Bin Liu

Summary

I am interested in a wide range of dynamics research problems from extroplanet to supermassive black hole (SMBH). During my PhD, my main research was the theoretical study of Lidov-Kozai (LK) mechanism and other three-body secular dynamics, including some associated applications in various astrophysical contexts. This mechanism is based on the secular approximation and requires hierarchical triple configurations, where two objects orbit each other in a relatively tight inner orbit and a distant companion is on a much wider orbit. If the pertueber is sufficient inclined, the large-amplitude oscillations of the eccentricity and inclinations of the inner binary can be produced. Numerous works have shown that the LK oscillations could play an important role in the formation and evolution of various astrophysical systems.

Over the last two years, I have worked on the formation of merging black hole (BH) or neutron star (NS) binaries in triples. Most notably, I am studying the final spin-orbit misalignment angles as a wonderful probe to disentangle the different LIGO binary BH formation channels.