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We report the discovery of the first likely black hole in a non-interacting binary system with a field red giant. By combining radial velocity measurements from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) with…

Preliminary astrometric data from the fourth data release of the $Gaia$ mission revealed a 33 M$_{\odot}$ dark companion to a metal-poor red giant star, deemed $Gaia$ BH3. This system hosts both the most massive known stellar-origin black…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-26 Zoe Hackshaw , Keith Hawkins , Catherine Manea

Massive stars mainly form in close binaries, where their mutual interactions can profoundly alter their evolutionary paths. Evolved binaries consisting of a massive OB-type main-sequence star with a stripped helium star or a compact…

Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) above $30 M_\odot$ are predicted to form from low-metallicity progenitors, but direct detections of such systems in the Milky Way remain scarce. Motivated by the recent discovery of Gaia BH3, a $33 M_\odot$ BH…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-21 Casey Y. Lam , Joshua D. Simon , Kareem El-Badry , Howard Isaacson , Daniel D. Kelson , Jessica Lu

We describe new optical photometric and spectroscopic observations of the semi-detached eclipsing binary BG Geminorum. A large change in the amount of Mg I absorption at secondary maximum indicates the presence of cool material in the outer…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 Scott J. Kenyon , Paul J. Groot , Priscilla Benson

Most massive stars are born in binary or higher-order multiple systems and exchange mass with a companion during their lives. In particular, the progenitors of a large fraction of compact object mergers, and Galactic neutron stars (NSs) and…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2021-01-04 F. R. N. Schneider , Ph. Podsiadlowski , B. Müller

We determine the mass of the nuclear black hole ($M$) in NGC 3706, an early type galaxy with a central surface brightness minimum arising from an apparent stellar ring, which is misaligned with respect to the galaxy's major axis at larger…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-18 Kayhan Gültekin , Karl Gebhardt , John Kormendy , Tod R. Lauer , Ralf Bender , Scott Tremaine , Douglas O. Richstone

We propose a method to search for stellar-mass black hole (BH) candidates with giant companions from spectroscopic observations. Based on the stellar spectra of LAMOST Data Release 6, we obtain a sample of seven giants in binaries with…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2019-02-27 Wei-Min Gu , Hui-Jun Mu , Jin-Bo Fu , Ling-Lin Zheng , Tuan Yi , Zhong-Rui Bai , Song Wang , Hao-Tong Zhang , Ya-Juan Lei , Yu Bai , Jianfeng Wu , Junfeng Wang , Jifeng Liu

Stars with an initial mass more than ~25 Msun are thought to ultimately become black holes. Then stellar-mass black holes should be ubiquitous but fewer than 20 have been found in our Galaxy to date, all of which have been found through…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2020-01-24 Hiromoto Shibahashi , Simon J. Murphy

We study the prospects of searching for black hole (BH) binary systems with a stellar-mass BH and a non-compact visible companion, by utilizing the spectroscopic data of Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). We…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2020-01-08 Tuan Yi , Mouyuan Sun , Wei-Min Gu

Stellar-mass black holes ($3$ $M_\odot \lesssim M_{\rm BH} \lesssim 150$ $M_\odot$) are the natural product of the evolution of heavy stars ($M_{\rm star} \gtrsim 20$ $M_\odot$). In our Galaxy, we expect $10^8$-$10^9$ stellar-mass black…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-08-27 Cosimo Bambi

We report the discovery of a metal-rich red giant star, WINERED-HVS1, which is a candidate for a hyper-velocity star (HVS). Its past trajectory suggests that this star may have been ejected by the Galactic supermassive black hole (SMBH; Sgr…

The evolution of helium stars with initial masses in the range 1.6 to 120 Msun is studied, including the effects of mass loss by winds. These stars are assumed to form in binary systems when their expanding hydrogenic envelopes are promptly…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2019-06-19 S. E. Woosley

Stars stripped of their hydrogen-rich envelopes through binary interaction are thought to be responsible for both hydrogen-poor supernovae and the hard ionizing radiation observed in low-$Z$ galaxies. A population of these stars was…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2025-05-28 B. Hovis-Afflerbach , Y. Götberg , A. Schootemeijer , J. Klencki , A. L. Strom , B. A. Ludwig , M. R. Drout

The emission-line binary ALS 8814 was recently proposed as a Be star + black hole (BH) binary based on large-amplitude radial velocity (RV) variations of a Be star and non-detection of spectroscopic features from a luminous companion. We…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2025-09-04 Kareem El-Badry , Matthias Fabry , Hugues Sana , Tomer Shenar , Rhys Seeburger

Light curves, explosion energies, and remnant masses are calculated for a grid of supernovae resulting from massive helium stars that have been evolved including mass loss. These presupernova stars should approximate the results of binary…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-02-19 Thomas Ertl , Stan E. Woosley , Tuguldur Sukhbold , H. -Thomas Janka

We investigate black hole-star binaries formed in $N$-body simulations of massive, dense star clusters. We simulate 32 clusters with varying initial masses ($10^{4}~\rm M_{\odot}$ to $10^{6}~\rm M_{\odot}$), densities ($1200~\rm…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-02-21 Federico Fantoccoli , Jordan Barber , Fani Dosopoulou , Debatri Chattopadhyay , Fabio Antonini

He has been proposed as a key element to interpret the observed multiple MS, SGB, and RGB, as well as the complex horizontal branch (HB) morphology. Stars belonging to the bluer part of the HB, are thought to be more He rich (\Delta Y=0.03…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-03 S. Villanova , D. Geisler , G. Piotto , R. Gratton

We study theoretically the formation of black-hole (BH) X-ray binaries. Consistency of the models with the observed relative numbers of systems with low-mass (<2 M_sun) and intermediate-mass (~2 M_sun - M_{BH}) donors leads to severe…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 Vassiliki Kalogera

There are millions of undetected black holes wandering through our galaxy. Observatories like {\it Chandra}, LIGO, and more recently, {\it Gaia}, have provided valuable insights into the configurations of these elusive objects when residing…