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Related papers: Tracing intermediate-mass black holes in the Galac…

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Dense stellar environments like nuclear star clusters (NSCs) can dynamically assemble gravitational wave (GW) sources. We consider a population of single stellar mass black holes (BHs) in the inner $0.1$~pc of a NSC surrounding a $4 \times…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-02-10 Amanda Newton , Sanaea C. Rose , Fulya Kıroğlu , Bao-Minh Hoang , Frederic A. Rasio

Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are those between 100 and 10$^5$ solar masses ($M_{\odot}$); their formation process is debated. One possible origin is the growth of less massive black holes (BHs) via mergers with stars and compact…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-06-12 Michiko S. Fujii , Long Wang , Ataru Tanikawa , Yutaka Hirai , Takayuki R. Saitoh

We have followed the evolution of multi-mass star clusters containing massive central black holes by N-body simulations on the GRAPE6 computers of Tokyo University. We find a strong cluster expansion and significant structural changes of…

Recently, an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) candidate was announced in the Galactic globular cluster Omega Centauri. IMBHs at the lower end of the traditional mass range have also been detected through gravitational-wave transients,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-03-02 Miguel A. S. Martinez , Elena González Prieto , Frederic A. Rasio

We study the formation of intermediate-mass ratio inspirals (IMRIs) triggered by the interactions between two stellar black holes (BHs) and an intermediate-mass BH (IMBH) inhabiting the centre of a dense star cluster. We exploit $N$-body…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-08-18 Manuel Arca-Sedda , Pau Amaro-Seoane , Xian Chen

Black holes (BHs) with masses between 100 to 100,000 times the mass of the Sun ($\rm{M}_{\odot}$) are classified as intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), potentially representing a crucial link between stellar-mass and supermassive BHs.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-02-29 Abbas Askar , Vivienne F. Baldassare , Mar Mezcua

We study the formation of massive black holes in the first star clusters. We first locate star-forming gas clouds in proto-galactic haloes of $\gtrsim \!10^7\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$ in cosmological hydrodynamics simulations and use them to…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-08-15 Yuya Sakurai , Naoki Yoshida , Michiko S. Fujii , Shingo Hirano

Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) represent a unique population of stars in the Galaxy reflecting properties of the whole Galactic potential. Determining their origin is of fundamental importance to constrain the shape and mass of the dark halo.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-09-25 Giacomo Fragione , Alessia Gualandris

We present the results of three body simulations focused on understanding the fates of intermediate mass black holes (IBH) that drift within the central 0.5 pc of the Galaxy. In particular, we modeled the interactions between pairs of $4000…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 F. Elliott Koch , Bradley M. S. Hansen

A galaxy halo may contain a large number of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) with masses in the range of 10^{2-6} solar mass. We propose to directly detect these IMBHs by observing multiply imaged QSO-galaxy or galaxy-galaxy strong…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2014-09-08 Kaiki Taro Inoue , Valery Rashkov , Joseph Silk , Piero Madau

It is widely accepted that black holes (BHs) with masses greater than a million solar masses (Msun) lurk at the centres of massive galaxies. The origins of such `supermassive' black holes (SMBHs) remain unknown (Djorgovski et al. 1999),…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-09-06 Tomoharu Oka , Shiho Tsujimoto , Yuhei Iwata , Mariko Nomura , Shunya Takekawa

Mergers of stellar-mass black holes were recently observed in the gravitational wave window opened by LIGO. This puts the spotlight on dense stellar systems and their ability to create intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) through repeated…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-06-29 Mario Pasquato

Globular clusters (GCs) may harbour intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) at their centres. In these dynamically active environments stellar-mass black holes (SBHs) sink to the center soon after formation, due to dynamical friction and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-07-31 Giacomo Fragione , Omer Bromberg

Despite recent observational efforts, unequivocal signs for the presence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in globular clusters (GCs) have not been found yet. Especially when the presence of IMBHs is constrained through dynamical…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-03-06 Ruggero de Vita , Michele Trenti , Morgan MacLeod

The recent detection of fast-moving stars in the core of Omega Centauri ($\omega$ Cen), the most massive globular cluster (GC) in the Milky Way, has provided strong evidence for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). As…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-08-22 Elena González Prieto , Carl L. Rodriguez , Tomás Cabrera

We propose a new formation channel for intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) binaries via globular cluster collisions in the Galactic disc. Using numerical simulations, we show that the IMBHs form a tight binary that enters the gravitational…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-06-17 Manuel Arca Sedda , Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti

Dense star clusters are promising nurseries for the formation and growth of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; $\sim 10^2-10^5\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$), with increasing observational evidence pointing to their presence in massive star…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-10-07 Abbas Askar , Marcelo C. Vergara , Sohaib Ali

It has been suggested that an intermediate-massive black hole (IMBH) with mass $10^{3-5} M_\odot$ could fall into the galactic center (GC) and form a massive black hole binary (MBHB) with the central supermassive black hole, but current…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-12 Xian Chen , F. K. Liu

The most massive galaxies in the Universe also host the largest supermassive black holes (SMBHs), with masses of $10^9 \: \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$ and above. During their hierarchical assembly, these galaxies have experienced only a few major…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-04-15 Lazaros Souvaitzis , Antti Rantala , Thorsten Naab