Related papers: Detecting Intermediate-mass Black Holes Using Mini…
The next generation of ground-based gravitational wave detectors may detect a few mergers of comparable-mass M\simeq 100-1000 Msun ("intermediate-mass'', or IMBH) spinning black holes. Black hole spin is known to have a significant impact…
Large-area sky surveys show that massive galaxies undergo at least one major merger in a Hubble time. Ongoing pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments are aimed at measuring the gravitational wave (GW) emission from binary supermassive black…
Future observations with next-generation large-area radio telescopes are expected to discover radio pulsars (PSRs) closely orbiting around Sagittarius~A* (Sgr~A*), the supermassive black hole (SMBH) dwelling at our Galactic Center (GC).…
In the Milky Way the central massive black hole, SgrA*, coexists with a compact nuclear star cluster that contains a sub-parsec concentration of fast-moving young stars called S-stars. Their location and age are not easily explained by…
Observational searches for Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBHs), defined to have masses between 30 and 300,000 solar masses, provide limits which allow up to ten percent of what is presently identified as halo dark matter to be in the form…
For a sample of nine Galactic globular clusters we measured the inner kinematic profiles with integral-field spectroscopy that we combined with existing outer kinematic measurements and HST luminosity profiles. With this information we are…
Recently, binary pulsar timing has been proposed as a viable probe of dark matter subhalos with masses of $\sim 10^7\,M_{\odot}$ in the solar neighborhood. We present a comprehensive analytical framework that incorporates the subhalo mass…
Merging compact black-hole (BH) binaries are likely to exist in the nuclear star clusters around supermassive BHs (SMBHs), such as Sgr A$^\ast$. They may also form in the accretion disks of active galactic nuclei. Such compact binaries can…
Massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) produce gravitational waves (GWs) that are detectable with pulsar timing arrays. We determine the properties of the host galaxies of simulated MBHBs at the time they are producing detectable GW signals.…
Highly energetic astrophysical phenomena like supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) mergers are predicted to emit prodigious amounts of gravitational waves (GWs). An anticipated component of the gravitational waveform known as "memory" is…
The advent of next generation radio telescope facilities, such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), will usher in an era where a Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) based search for gravitational waves (GWs) will be able to use hundreds of well timed…
Close encounters between two initially unbound objects can result in a binary system if enough energy is released as gravitational waves (GWs). We address the scenario in which such encounters occur in merging elliptical galaxies. There is…
[abridged] Theoretical investigations have suggested the presence of Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBHs, with masses in the 100-10000 Msun range) in the cores of some Globular Clusters (GCs). In this paper we present the first application…
Hierarchical mergers in a dense environment are one of the primary formation channels of intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) binary system. We expect that the resulting massive binary system will exhibit mass asymmetry. The emitted…
The existence of a population of wandering Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBHs) is a generic prediction of scenarios that seek to explain the formation of Supermassive Black Holes in terms of growth from massive seeds. The growth of IMBHs…
We discuss the possibility of detecting the presence of primordial black holes (PBHs), such as those that might account for galactic dark matter, using modification of pulsar timing residuals when PBHs pass within ~1000 AU and impart…
Between the groundbreaking detections of stellar-mass black holes by LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA and JWST's revelation of a surprisingly abundant population of supermassive black holes, one crucial missing link remains: the elusive intermediate-mass…
In this work, we address the following question: ``can we use the current cosmological simulations to identify intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) and quantify a putative population of wandering IMBHs?''. We compare wandering-IMBH counts…
Dark matter substructure, such as primordial black holes (PBHs) and axion miniclusters, can induce phase shifts in pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) measurements due to gravitational effects. In order to gain a more realistic forecast for the…
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…