Related papers: Predicting intermediate-mass black hole formation …
The existence of supermassive black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies and of stellar binary systems containing a black hole with a few solar masses has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The idea that black holes of…
We use our cluster population model, cBHBd, to explore the mass distribution of merging black hole binaries formed dynamically in globular clusters. We include in our models the effect of mass growth through hierarchical mergers and compare…
Most stars form in dense stellar environments. It is speculated that some dense star clusters may host intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), which may have formed from runaway collisions between high-mass stars, or from the mergers of less…
We discuss a new scenario for the formation of intermediate mass black holes in dense star clusters. In this scenario, intermediate mass black holes are formed as a result of dynamical interactions of hard binaries containing a stellar mass…
Evidence has been mounting for the existence of black holes with masses from 10^2 to 10^4 M_Solar associated with stellar clusters. Such intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) will encounter other black holes in the dense cores of these…
Forbes et al. recently used the Hubble Space Telescope to localize hundreds of candidate star clusters in NGC 1023, an early-type galaxy at a distance of 11.1 Mpc. Old stars dominate the light of 92% of the clusters and intermediate-age…
Supermassive black holes are found in most galactic nuclei. A large fraction of these nuclei also contain a nuclear stellar cluster surrounding the black hole. Here we consider the idea that the nuclear stellar cluster formed first and that…
We simulate the inner 100pc of the Milky-Way Galaxy to study the formation and evolution of the population of star clusters and intermediate mass black holes. For this study we perform extensive direct N-body simulations of the star…
The existence of black holes (BHs) with masses in the range between stellar remnants and supermassive BHs has only recently become unambiguously established. GW190521, a gravitational wave signal detected by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration,…
While tens or hundreds of stellar-remnant black holes are expected to form in globular star clusters, it is still unclear how many of those will be retained upon formation, and how many will be ejected through subsequent dynamical…
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,…
The discovery of numerous non-nuclear X-ray point sources with luminosities L>10^39 erg/s in several starburst galaxies has stimulated speculation about their nature and origin. The strong variability seen in several sources points to…
A luminous X-ray source is associated with a cluster (MGG-11) of young stars \~200pc from the center of the starburst galaxy M82. The properties of the X-ray source are best explained by a black hole with a mass of at least 350Msun, which…
We investigate the formation of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) through hierarchical mergers of stellar origin black holes (BHs), as well as BH mergers formed dynamically in nuclear star clusters. Using a semi-analytical approach…
We explore the relation between the total globular cluster population in a galaxy (N_GC) and the the mass of its central black hole (M_BH). Using a sample of 33 galaxies, twice as large as the original sample discussed by Burkert & Tremaine…
Young dense massive star clusters are a promising environment for the formation of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) through collisions. We present a set of 80 simulations carried out with Nbody6++GPU of 10 initial conditions for…
Dense stellar environments like nuclear star clusters (NSCs) can dynamically assemble gravitational wave (GW) sources. We consider a population of single stellar mass black holes (BHs) in the inner $0.1$~pc of a NSC surrounding a $4 \times…
We present an indirect dynamical evidence, based on the measure of the core to half mass radius ratio (rc/rh), that a significant fraction of globular clusters in our galaxy with an age greater than 10 half-mass relaxation times (t_rh) host…
The existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in globular clusters (GCs) remains a crucial problem. Searching IMBHs in GCs reveals a discrepancy between radio observations and dynamical modelings: the upper mass limits constrained…
The mathematical simplicity of black holes, combined with their links to some of the most energetic events in the universe, means that black holes are key objects for fundamental physics and astrophysics. Until recently, it was generally…