Related papers: Microlensing by Stellar Black Holes Around Sgr A*
Gravitational microlensing is a robust tool to detect and directly measure the abundance and mass of any kind of compact objects, either in our galaxy or in the extragalatic domain. On basis to generic, broadly applicable arguments, it is…
Two independent groups reported the discovery of an isolated dark stellar remnant in the microlensing event OGLE-2011-BLG-0462 based on photometric ground-based observations coupled with astrometric measurements taken with the Hubble Space…
By monitoring a large number of stars in the Local Group galaxies, we can detect nanolensing events by sub-lunar mass compact objects (SULCOs) such as primordial black holes (PBHs) and rogue (free-floating) dwarf planets in the Milky Way…
With 10 years of high-resolution imaging data now available on the stellar cluster in the Galactic Center, we analyze the dynamics of the stars at projected distances $\leq1.2''$ from the central black hole candidate Sagittarius A* (Sgr…
In the neighborhood of Sgr A*, several stars (S2, S12, S14, S1, S8, S13) enjoy an accurate determination of their orbital parameters. General Relativity predicts that the central black hole acts as a gravitational lens on these stars,…
The analysis of the first three years of the OGLE data revealed 12 microlensing events of the Galactic bulge stars, with the characteristic time scales in the range $ 8.6 < t_0 < 80 $ days, where $ t_0 = R_E / V $. A complete sample of nine…
Episodically accreting black holes are thought to produce flares when a chunk of particles is accelerated to high velocity near the black hole horizon. This also seems to be the case of Sagittarius A* in the Galactic Center, where the…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global 230 GHz VLBI array, achieves an angular resolution of ${\approx} 20\,\mu{\rm as}$, sufficient to resolve the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). This resolution may soon enable…
We study the benefits of polarimetry observations of microlensing events to detect and characterize circumstellar disks around the microlensed stars located at the Galactic bulge. These disks which are unresolvable from their host stars…
Sgr A* is considered to be a massive black hole at the Galactic center and is known to be variable in radio, millimeter, near-IR and X-rays. Recent multi-wavelength observing campaigns show a simultaneous X-ray and near-IR flare, as well as…
Near-infrared observations of stellar orbits at the Galactic Center provide conclusive evidence for a massive black hole associated with the compact radio source Sgr A*. The astrometric reference frame for these observations is tied to a…
The recent detection of significant linear polarization at mm and sub-mm wavelengths in the spectrum of Sgr A* (if confirmed) will be a useful probe of the conditions within several Schwarzschild radii ($r_S$) of the event horizon at the…
Microlensing events provide a unique way to detect and measure the masses of isolated, non-luminous objects, particularly dark stellar remnants. Under certain conditions, it is possible to measure the mass of these objects using photometry…
Supermagnified stars are gravitationally lensed individual stars that are located close to a caustic of a lensing galaxy cluster, and have their flux magnified by a large enough factor (typically ~ 1000) to make them detectable with present…
The mass of single neutron stars (NSs) can be measured using astrometric microlensing events. In such events, the center-of-light motion of a star lensed by a NS will deviate from the expected non-lensed motion and this deviation can be…
A new statistical method for pinpointing the massive black hole (BH) in the Galactic Center on the IR grid is presented and applied to astrometric IR observations of stars close to the BH. This is of interest for measuring the IR emission…
If stars at the lower end of the main sequence are responsible for the microlensing events observed in the Galactic bulge, then light from the lensing star contributes to the observed brightness. The background and lensing stars generally…
Some previous studies have suggested that massive and intermediate-mass primordial black holes (PBHs) could comprise a substantial fraction of dark matter in the Universe. Such black holes, if they existed in the Milky Way halo, would give…
Mergers between stellar-mass black holes will be key sources of gravitational radiation for ground-based detectors. However, the rates of these events are highly uncertain, given that such systems are invisible. One formation scenario…
Stellar microlensing observations tightly constrain compact object dark matter in the mass range $(10^{-11} - 10^{3}) M_{\odot}$. Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) form clusters, and it has been argued that these microlensing constraints are…