Related papers: The hyperluminous X-ray source candidate in IC 432…
The more than 80 nearby galaxies imaged with the Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer have been analyzed in a search for Ultra-Luminous X-ray (ULX) sources. The sample of galaxies span the range of Hubble morphological types and…
Intermediate mass black holes (10^2 < M_BH< 10^5 Msun) are an open question in our understanding of black hole evolution and growth. They have long been linked to dense star cluster environments thanks to cluster dynamics, but there are a…
The QSO HE0450-2958 was brought to the front scene by the non-detection of its host galaxy and strong upper limits on the latter's luminosity. The QSO is also a powerful infrared emitter, in gravitational interaction with a strongly…
Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBHs) are a class of black holes with masses in the range $10^2 \div 10^5$ $M_\odot$, which can not directly derive from stellar evolution. Looking for these objects and estimating their abundance is…
The proposal of a galactic population of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs), forming dark matter (DM) ``mini-spikes'' around them, has received considerable attention in recent years. In fact, leading in some scenarios to large…
We have computed models for ultraluminous X-ray sources ("ULXs") consisting of a black-hole accretor of intermediate mass ("IMBH"; e.g., ~1000 Msun) and a captured donor star. For each of four different sets of initial donor masses and…
We present a pilot study of the X-ray properties of intermediate-mass (~10^5-10^6 M_sun) black holes in active galaxies using the Chandra X-ray telescope. Eight of the 10 active galaxies are detected with a significance of at least 3 sigma,…
Recent evidence - in particular the hard X-ray spectra obtained by NuSTAR, and the large amplitude hard X-ray variability observed when ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) show soft spectra - reveals that common ULX behaviour is inconsistent…
The nature of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) is not yet fully understood but it can be done in the most efficient way by analyzing its optical emission and environment. We present preliminary results of photometric and spectral studies…
We present the results of X-ray variability and spectral analysis of a sample of 15 new candidates for active galactic nuclei with relatively low-mass black holes (BHs). They are selected from the Second XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source…
If intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) grow efficiently in gas disks around supermassive black holes, their host active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks should exhibit myriad observational signatures. Gap-opening IMBHs in AGN disks can…
Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs), with masses between 100 to 10^5 M_\odot, represent the link between stellar mass black holes and the supermassive black holes that reside in galaxy centers. While IMBHs are crucial to our understanding…
Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are X-ray bright (L$_{\rm X-ray} >$3$\times$10$^{39}$erg s$^{-1}$) extra-galactic objects that are powered by either neutron stars, or stellar or intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) but few have been…
We discuss the potential of the gravitational microlensing method as a unique tool to detect unambiguous signals caused by intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters. We select clusters near the line of sight to the Galactic Bulge…
We have conducted a systematic search of AGNs with IMBHs from the SDSS DR4. As results we found 245 candidates of broad-line AGN with M_{BH}<10^6 \Msun estimated from the luminosity and width of the broad Halpha component. Compared to the…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are mostly extragalactic non-nuclear point sources having X-ray luminosity exceeding the Eddington luminosity of 10 $M_\odot$ black hole i.e., $L_X \geq $ 10$^{39}$ erg ~s$^{-1}$. They are observed in all…
Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), with masses of hundreds to thousands of solar masses, will be unique sources of gravitational waves for LISA. Here we discuss their context as well as specific characteristics of IMBH-IMBH and…
The luminosities of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) require an exotic solution with either super-critical accretion modes onto stellar mass black holes or sub-critical accretion onto intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) being invoked.…
Observational searches for intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; $10^2 - 10^6$ $M_\odot$) include relatively isolated dwarf galaxies. For those that host active galactic nuclei (AGNs), the IMBH nature may be discerned through the accretion…
In this paper we present a comprehensive study of the mass of the intermediate mass black hole candidate HLX-1 in the galaxy ESO 243-49. We analyse the continuum X-ray spectra collected by Swift, XMM-Newton, and Chandra with the slim disc…