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Exploring the local black hole mass function below $10^6$ solar masses

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2019-10-02 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

The local black hole mass function (BHMF) is of great interest to a variety of astrophysical problems, ranging from black hole binary merger rates to an indirect census of the dominant seeding mechanism of supermassive black holes. In this Letter, we combine the latest galaxy stellar mass function from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey with X-ray-based constraints to the local black hole occupation fraction to probe the BHMF below 10610^6 MM_{\odot}. Notwithstanding the large uncertainties inherent to the choice of a reliable observational proxy for black hole mass, the resulting range of BHMFs yields a combined normalization uncertainty of \lesssim1 dex over the [105106][10^5-10^6] MM_{\odot} range, where upcoming, space-based gravitational wave detectors are designed to be most sensitive.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1909.02585,
  title  = {Exploring the local black hole mass function below $10^6$ solar masses},
  author = {Elena Gallo and Alberto Sesana},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.02585},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

Accepted by ApJ as a Letter

R2 v1 2026-06-23T11:07:07.730Z