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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…

Repeated mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in dense star clusters can produce intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). In particular, nuclear star clusters at the centers of galaxies have deep enough potential wells to retain most of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-07-20 Giacomo Fragione , Abraham Loeb , Bence Kocsis , Frederic A. Rasio

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

This paper reviews the subject of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) with masses between those of "stellar-mass" and "super-massive" black holes. The existence of IMBHs is a real possibility: they might plausibly have formed as remnants…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Roeland P. van der Marel

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

Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) could form via runaway merging of massive stars in a young massive star cluster (YMC). We combine a suite of numerical simulations of YMC formation with a semi-analytic model for dynamical friction and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-05-27 Yanlong Shi , Michael Y. Grudić , Philip F. Hopkins

We have developed a new method for post-Newtonian, high-precision integration of stellar systems containing a super-massive black hole (SMBH), splitting the forces on a particle between a dominant central force and perturbations. We used…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-04-11 Ulf Löckmann , Holger Baumgardt

Definitive evidence that globular clusters (GCs) host intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) is elusive. Machine learning (ML) models trained on GC simulations can in principle predict IMBH host candidates based on observable features. This…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-10-31 Mario Pasquato , Piero Trevisan , Abbas Askar , Pablo Lemos , Gaia Carenini , Michela Mapelli , Yashar Hezaveh

In this paper, we address the question: What is the probability of stellar-mass black hole (BH) binaries co-existing in a globular cluster with an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH)? Our results suggest that the detection of one or more BH…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-22 Nathan W. C. Leigh , Nora Luetzgendorf , Aaron M. Geller , Thomas J. Maccarone , Craig O. Heinke , Alberto Sesana

Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) in the mass range $10^2-10^5\,\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$ bridge the gap between stellar black holes (BHs) and supermassive BHs. Here, we investigate the possibility that IMBHs form in young star clusters via…

Contrary to supermassive and stellar-mass black holes (SBHs), the existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) with masses ranging between 10^{2-5} Msun has not yet been confirmed. The main problem in the detection is that the…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-30 Symeon Konstantinidis , Pau Amaro-Seoane , Kostas D. Kokkotas

Current theoretical models predict a mass gap with a dearth of stellar black holes (BHs) between roughly $50\,M_\odot$ and $100\,M_\odot$, while, above the range accessible through massive star evolution, intermediate-mass BHs (IMBHs) still…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-03-30 Giacomo Fragione , Bence Kocsis , Frederic A. Rasio , Joseph Silk

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-12-12 A. Franco , A. A. Nucita , F. De Paolis , F. Strafella , M. Maiorano

Gravitational waves (GWs) offer an unprecedented opportunity to survey the sky and detect mergers of compact objects. While intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) have not been detected beyond any reasonable doubt with either dynamical or…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-11-16 Giacomo Fragione

Finding an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) in a globular cluster (GC), or proving its absence, is a crucial ingredient in our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. The challenge is to identify a unique signature of an IMBH…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-08-23 Alice Zocchi , Mark Gieles , Vincent Hénault-Brunet

We investigate the evolution of star clusters containing intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) of $300$ to $5000\ \mathrm{M}_\odot$, focusing on the formation and evolution of IMBH-stellar mass black holes (SBHs; $M_{\rm BH} \lesssim 10^2\…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-03-31 Seungjae Lee , Hyung Mok Lee , Ji-hoon Kim , Rainer Spurzem , Jongsuk Hong , Eunwoo Chung

Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) with a mass between $10^{2}$ and $10^{5}$ times that of the sun, which bridges the {mass gap between the} stellar-mass black holes and the supermassive black holes, are crucial in understanding the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-05-05 Yun-Feng Liang , Yuan-Zhu Wang , Hao Wang , Xiang Li , Yi-Ming Hu , Zhi-Ping Jin , Yi-Zhong Fan , En-Wei Liang , Da-Ming Wei

Next-generation ground-based gravitational wave observatories will observe mergers of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) out to high redshift. Such IMBHs can form through runaway tidal encounters in the cores of dense stellar clusters.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-03-27 Konstantinos Kritos , Luca Reali , Ken K. Y. Ng , Fabio Antonini , Emanuele Berti

Theoretical models predict that intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) exist in globular clusters (GCs), but observational evidence remains elusive. Millisecond pulsars (MSPs), which are abundant in GCs and have served as precise probes for…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-07-15 Xian Chen , Verónica Vázquez-Aceves , Siyuan Chen , Kejia Lee , Yanjun Guo , Kuo Liu

Intermediate-mass black holes are the missing link that connects stellar-mass to supermassive black holes and are key to understanding galaxy evolution. Gravitational waves, like photons, can be lensed, leading to discernable effects such…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2018-11-27 Kwun-Hang Lai , Otto A. Hannuksela , Antonio Herrera-Martín , Jose M. Diego , Tom Broadhurst , Tjonnie G. F. Li