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Related papers: Where are the Intermediate Mass Black Holes?

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We analyzed images of every northern hemisphere Sd galaxy listed in the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC3) with a relatively face-on inclination ($\theta\leq30{\deg}$). Specifically, we measured the spiral arms' winding…

The recent discovery of gravitational waves has opened new horizons for physics. Current and upcoming missions, such as LIGO, VIRGO, KAGRA, and LISA, promise to shed light on black holes of every size from stellar mass (SBH) sizes up to…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-04-11 Giacomo Fragione , Idan Ginsburg , Bence Kocsis

It has long been suggested that a fraction of the dark matter in the Universe could exist in the form of primordial black holes (PBHs) that have existed since the radiation dominated era. Recent studies have suggested that these PBHs may be…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-09-03 Lewis R. Prole , John A. Regan , Daxal Mehta , Peter Coles , Pratika Dayal

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…

The scientific aim of the space gravitational wave (GW) detector Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) that was scheduled to launch in the early 2030s is to detect the low-frequency GW signals in the Galaxy. Its main candidate GW…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-01-25 Wen-Cong Chen

Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) have not been detected beyond any reasonable doubt through either dynamical or accretion signatures. Gravitational waves (GWs) represent an unparalleled opportunity to survey the sky and detect mergers…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-02-22 Giacomo Fragione , Abraham Loeb

Current stellar evolution models predict a dearth of black holes (BHs) with masses $\gtrsim 50$ M$_\odot$ and $\lesssim 5$ M$_\odot$, and intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; $\sim10^2- 10^5$ M$_\odot$) have not yet been detected beyond…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-09-09 Giacomo Fragione , Joseph Silk

The Laser Interferometer Lunar Antenna (LILA) is a proposed gravitational-wave project aiming to take full advantage of the Moon's environment to access the deci-Hz band and detect intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) binaries of mass $\sim…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-05-13 Tintin Nguyen , Anjali Yelikar , Ryan Nowicki , Karan Jani , Angelo Ricarte

I review scenarios for the assembly of supermassive black holes (MBHs) at the center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical build-up far up in the dark matter halo "merger tree". Monte Carlo realizations of the merger hierarchy in a LCDM…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 Piero Madau

Although their existence is not yet confirmed observationally, intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) may play a key role in the dynamics of galactic nuclei. In this paper, we neglect the effect of the nuclear star cluster itself and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-04-15 Barnabás Deme , Yohai Meiron , Bence Kocsis

The scaling relation of central massive black holes (MBHs) and their host galaxies is well-studied for supermassive BHs (SMBHs, $M_{\rm BH}\ \ge 10^6\, M_{\rm \odot}$). However, this relation has large uncertainties in the mass range of the…

Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) are among the most elusive objects in contemporary astrophysics. Both theoretical and observational evidence of their existence is subject of debate. Conversely, both theory and observations confirm the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-11 Alberto Sesana , Nicola Sartore , Bernadetta Devecchi , Andrea Possenti

A number of scenarios have been proposed for the origin of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are found in the centres of most galaxies. Many such scenarios predict a high-redshift population of massive black holes (MBHs), with…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-19 Joseph E. Plowman , Ronald W. Hellings , Sachiko Tsuruta

While the formation of the first black holes at high redshift is reasonably well understood though debated, massive black hole formation at later cosmic epochs has not been adequately explored. We present a gas accretion driven mechanism…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-12-22 Priyamvada Natarajan

We explore the formation of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs), potential seeds for supermassive black holes (SMBHs), via runaway stellar collisions for a wide range of star cluster (surface) densities ($4\times10^3 M_\odot$ pc$^{-2}…

Massive Primordial Black Holes (MPBH) can be formed after inflation due to broad peaks in the primordial curvature power spectrum that collapse gravitationally during the radiation era, to form clusters of black holes that merge and…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2017-06-28 Juan García-Bellido

The mass range of observed black holes extends from stellar-mass to supermassive scales, yet the existence of objects in the intermediate-mass range of $10^{2} - 10^{5} \text{M}_{\odot}$ remains unconfirmed. Black holes are suspected to…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-04-08 Artak Mkrtchyan , Dieter Horns

Accretion of matter onto central Black Holes (BHs) in galaxies liberates enormous amounts of feedback energy, which influence the formation and evolution of structures, affecting the environment from pc to Mpc scales. These BHs are usually…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-03-15 Paramita Barai , Elisabete M. de Gouveia Dal Pino

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 (IMBHs) span the approximate mass range $100$--$10^5\,M_\odot$, between black holes (BHs) formed by stellar collapse and the supermassive BHs at the centers of galaxies. Mergers of IMBH binaries are the most…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-03-16 The LIGO Scientific Collaboration , the Virgo Collaboration , the KAGRA Collaboration