Related papers: Prospects for measuring supermassive black hole ma…

Context. The supermassive black hole, Sagittarius (Sgr) A*, in the centre of our Galaxy has the largest angular size in the sky among all astrophysical black holes. Its shadow, assuming no rotation, spans ~ 50 microarcsec. Resolving such…

This white paper explores the detectability of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) wandering in the Milky Way (MW) and massive local galaxies, with a particular emphasis on the role of AXIS. IMBHs, ranging within $10^{3-6} \, M_\odot$,…

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) found in the centers of many galaxies have been recognized to play a fundamental active role in the cosmological structure formation process. In hierarchical formation scenarios, SMBHs are expected to form…

Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are accreting black holes for which their X-ray properties have been seen to be different to the case of stellar-mass black hole binaries. For most of the cases their intrinsic energy spectra are well…

One of the most exciting potential sources of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) are the inspirals of approximately solar mass compact objects into massive black holes in the centres of galaxies - extreme…

The mass of the central black hole in a galaxy that hosted a tidal disruption event (TDE) is an important parameter in understanding its energetics and dynamics. We present the first homogeneously measured black hole masses of a complete…

The next-generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) will provide us with the best opportunity to investigate supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the highest possible resolution and sensitivity. With respect to the existing Event Horizon…

This chapter describes the prospects for detecting the first black holes in our Universe, with a specific focus on instruments/telescopes that will come online within the next decade, including e.g. the SKA, WFIRST, EUCLID, JWST, and large…

We explore the precision with which the Einstein Telescope (ET) will be able to measure the parameters of intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals (IMRIs). We calculate the parameter estimation errors using the Fisher Matrix formalism and present…

Understanding how seed black holes grow into intermediate and supermassive black holes (IMBHs and SMBHs, respectively) has important implications for the duty-cycle of active galactic nuclei (AGN), galaxy evolution, and gravitational wave…

We perform the first fully nonlinear numerical simulations of black-hole binaries with mass ratios 100:1. Our technique for evolving such extreme mass ratios is based on the moving puncture approach with a new gauge condition and an optimal…

We describe MIFS, a second generation integral-field spectrograph for the VLT, operating in the visible wavelength range. It combines a 1'x1' field of view with the improved spatial resolution provided by multi-conjugate adaptive optics and…

We present a highly-scalable framework that targets problems of interest to the numerical relativity and broader astrophysics communities. This framework combines a parallel octree-refined adaptive mesh with a wavelet adaptive…

We conduct spectral observations of 138 superthin galaxies (STGs) with high radial-to-vertical stellar disk scales ratio with the Dual Imaging Spectrograph (DIS) on the 3.5m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory (APO) to obtain the…

We expand upon the AMUSE-Virgo survey which imaged 100 early-type Virgo cluster galaxies with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and we place an emphasis on potential intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs). Virgo early-type galaxies with…

Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) have masses of about 100 to 100,000 solar masses. They remain elusive. Observing IMBHs in present-day globular clusters (GCs) would validate a formation channel for seed black holes in the early…

The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a proposed third generation ground-based interferometer, for which the target is a sensitivity that is a factor of ten better than Advanced LIGO and a frequency range that extends down to about 1Hz. ET will…

At cosmological distances, gravitational lensing can provide a direct measurement of supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses irrespective of their luminosities. Here, we directly estimate the mass of a SMBH in the brightest cluster galaxy…

Electromagnetic observations reveal that almost all galaxies have supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers, but their properties, especially their spins, are not fully understood. Some of the authors have recently shown [Oshita and…

The Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope (CSST) is a next-generation Stage-IV facility renowned for its wide field of view, high image quality, and multi-band observational capabilities. Among the five instruments onboard the CSST, the…