Short-Author Papers
22.04.24: Detecting gravitational-wave bursts from black hole binaries in the Galactic Center with LISA - A. Knee, J. McIver, S. Naoz, I. M. Romero-Shaw, B-M. Hoang, to be submitted to ApJL
21.02.24: Blind spots and biases: the dangers of ignoring eccentricity in gravitational-wave signals from binary black holes - Divyajyoti, S. Kumar, S. Tibrewal, I. M. Romero-Shaw, C. K. Mishra, published in PRD
06.10.23: Binary black hole mergers in nuclear star clusters: eccentricities, spins, masses, and the growth of massive seeds -D. Chattopadhyay, J. Stegmann, F. Antonini, J. Barber, I. M. Romero-Shaw, published in MNRAS
05.07.23: Rapid population synthesis of black-hole high-mass X-ray binaries: implications for binary stellar evolution - I. M. Romero-Shaw, R. Hirai, A. Bahramian, R. Willcox, I.Mandel, published in MNRAS
08.06.23: Inferring Interference: Identifying a Perturbing Tertiary with Eccentric Gravitational Wave Burst Timing - I. M. Romero-Shaw, N. Loutrel, M. Zevin, published in PRD
11.01.23: Eccentricity or spin precession? Distinguishing subdominant effects in gravitational-wave data - I. M. Romero-Shaw, D. Gerosa, N. Loutrel, published in MNRAS
13.09.22: A Rosetta Stone for eccentric gravitational waveform models - A. M. Knee, I. M. Romero-Shaw, P. D. Lasky, J. McIver, E. Thrane, published in ApJ
07.07.22: Subtracting glitches from gravitational-wave detector data during the third observing run - D. Davis, T. B. Littenberg, I. M. Romero-Shaw, M. Millhouse, J. McIver, F. Di Renzo, G. Ashton, published in Classical and Quantum Gravity
29.06.22: Four eccentric mergers increase the evidence that LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA's binary black holes form dynamically - I. M. Romero-Shaw, P. D. Lasky, E. Thrane, published in ApJ
28.06.22: Gravitational-wave inference for eccentric binaries: the argument of periapsis - T. A. Clarke, I. M. Romero-Shaw, P. D. Lasky, E. Thrane, published in MNRAS
08.06.22: When models fail: an introduction to posterior predictive checks and model misspecification in gravitational-wave astronomy - I. M. Romero-Shaw, E. Thrane, P. Lasky. Published in PASA
05.11.21: Signs of eccentricity in two gravitational-wave signals may indicate a sub-population of dynamically assembled binary black holes - I. M. Romero-Shaw, P. Lasky, E. Thrane, published in ApJ Letters
11.11.21: Implications of Eccentric Observations on Binary Black Hole Formation Channels - M. Zevin, I. M. Romero-Shaw, K. Kremer, E. Thrane, P. Lasky, published in ApJ Letters
02.07.21: Gravitational Waves as a Probe of Globular Cluster Formation and Evolution - I. M. Romero-Shaw, K. Kremer, P. D. Lasky, E. Thrane, J. Samsing, published in MNRAS
23.10.20: GW190521: Orbital Eccentricity and Signatures of Dynamical Formation in a Binary Black Hole Merger Signal - I. M. Romero-Shaw, P. D. Lasky, E. Thrane, J. Calderon Bustillo, published in ApJ Letters
21.09.20: Bayesian inference for compact binary coalescences with BILBY: Validation and application to the first LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalogue - I. M. Romero-Shaw, C. Talbot, S. Biscoveanu, V. D'Emilio, G. Ashton et al., published in MNRAS
11.05.20: On the Origin of GW190425 - I. M. Romero-Shaw, N. Farrow, S. Stevenson, E. Thrane, X-J. Zhu, published in MNRAS Letters
12.09.19: Searching for Eccentricity: Signatures of Dynamical Formation in the First Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalogue of LIGO and Virgo - I. M. Romero-Shaw, P. D. Lasky, E. Thrane, published in MNRAS
Posts
Research outline
I am a Herchel Smith Fellow at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. I'm interested in things that go bump in the fabric of space-time (aka, black holes crashing together). I am working to answer the question of how black holes and neutron stars find each other and collide, producing the space-time ripples that we observe with detectors like LIGO and Virgo. I did my PhD at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. My PhD supervisors were Associate Professor Paul Lasky and Professor Eric Thrane. I'm an alumnus of the OzGrav organisation and a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
In both my PhD thesis and my current work, I focus primarily on things to do with the dynamical assembly of binary black hole systems. I am particularly interested in different dynamical formation environments, such as globular clusters, AGN disks, and nuclear clusters.
The parameters of a binary leave an imprint on their gravitational-wave signal, and these can give us clues to how the binary formed. Sometimes, in dynamical environments, binaries can retain significant orbital eccentricity just before they merge; this leaves its mark on the gravitational-wave signal that we detect. Along with component masses, spins and redshift evolution, eccentricity can tell us about the way that a compact object binary formed. This video is a great illustration of a three-body interaction causing a highly eccentric binary.
In other projects, I’m involved in developing bilby, a modular Python library facilitating Bayesian inference, optimised for gravitational wave science.
I completed my MSci in Physics at Birmingham University in the UK. I did my Master's project with Professor Andreas Freise, using Python code to model the noise at gravitational wave detectors. I helped to develop Space Py Quest, a Python code that lets you simulate your own gravitational wave detections! Its more glamorous older sister is Space Time Quest, a game with lovely graphics that lets you build and run your own detector without touching the code.
During my time at the University of Birmingham, I worked with Professor Ilya Mandel as a summer student. I worked on comparing different methods of evolving virtual stars within COMPAS, a code that simulates and analyses stellar evolution in order to work out how LIGO’s observed binaries formed. These days, I am still working with Ilya and the COMPAS team to answer another formation mystery: how X-ray binaries are made.
If you’d like to have a chat about any of the above, please get in touch!