Related papers: Is NGC 6752 Hosting a Single or a Binary Black Hol…
Empirical evidence for both stellar mass black holes M_bh<10^2 M_sun) and supermassive black holes (SMBHs, M_bh>10^5 M_sun) is well established. Moreover, every galaxy with a bulge appears to host a SMBH, whose mass is correlated with the…
Over the last few years, the number of known eclipsing radio millisecond pulsar systems in the Galactic field has dramatically increased, with many being associated with Fermi gamma-ray sources. All are in tight binaries (orbital period <…
It has been assumed that intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in globular clusters can only reside in the most centrally concentrated clusters, with a so-called `core-collapsed' density profile. While this would be a natural guess, it is…
By examining the locations of central black holes in two elliptical galaxies, M\,32 and M\,87, we derive constraints on the violation of the strong equivalence principle for purely gravitational objects, i.e. black holes, of less than about…
We study the compact binary population in star clusters, focusing on binaries containing black holes, using a self-consistent Monte Carlo treatment of dynamics and full stellar evolution. We find that the black holes experience strong mass…
Recently, both stellar mass-segregation and binary-fractions were uniformly measured on relatively large samples of Galactic Globular Clusters (GCs). Simulations show that both sizeable binary-star populations and Intermediate-Mass Black…
We report the discovery of a binary millisecond pulsar (namely PSR J1641+3627F or M13F) in the globular cluster M13 (NGC 6205) and timing solutions of M13A to F using observations made with the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio…
Supermassive black holes are expected to pair as a result of galaxy mergers, and form a bound binary at parsec or sub-parsec scales. These scales are unresolved even in nearby galaxies, and thus detection of non-active black hole binaries…
Intermediate mass black holes play a critical role in understanding the evolutionary connection between stellar mass and super-massive black holes. However, to date the existence of these species of black holes remains ambiguous and their…
The compelling dynamical evidence for massive dark objects in galactic nuclei does not uniquely imply massive black holes (BHs). To argue convincingly that these objects are BHs we must rule out alternatives to a BH, and the alternative to…
If the stellar population of the bulge contains black holes formed in the final core collapse of ordinary stars with M \ga 30 M_{\odot}, then about 25,000 stellar mass black holes should have migrated by dynamical friction into the central…
Numerical simulations of the disruption of a dwarf companion moving in the polar plane of a massive galaxy are presented. The constructed model is compared with observational data on the recently discovered low-surface-brightness stellar…
We analyze proper motions from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the second Gaia data release along with line-of-sight velocities from the MUSE spectrograph to detect imprints of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) in the center of…
Recent results indicate that the compact lenticular galaxy NGC 1277 in the Perseus Cluster contains a black hole of approximately 10 billion solar masses. This far exceeds the expected mass of the central black hole in a galaxy of the…
The massive black hole (MBH) in the Galactic Center and the stars around it form a unique stellar dynamics laboratory for studying how relaxation processes affect the distribution of stars and compact remnants and lead to close interactions…
We carried out a radial velocity survey for spectroscopic binaries in the low density globular cluster NGC5053. Our sample contains a total of 77 cluster member giant and subgiant stars with visual magnitudes of 14.5-18.6. Of these 77…
In this small review we present the actual state the knowledge about weighting black holes. Black holes can be found in stellar binary systems in our Galaxy and in other nearby galaxies, in globular clusters, which we can see in our and…
We present the discovery of 5 millisecond pulsars found in the mid-Galactic latitude portion of the High Time Resolution Universe (HTRU) Survey. The pulsars have rotational periods from ~2.3 to ~7.5 ms, and all are in binary systems with…
Studies of nearby galaxies reveal that roughly half of their low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) populations are associated with globular clusters (GCs). We have established that the LMXB hosting frequency is correlated to various GC properties…
Omega Centauri ($\omega$ Cen) is one of the most complex star clusters in the Milky Way, and likely the stripped nucleus of an accreted dwarf galaxy. Being the subject of debate between it hosting an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) or a…