Related papers: Stellar black hole mass function: determination an…
Black holes in binary star systems are vital for understanding the process of pr oducing gravitational wave sources, understanding how supernovae work, and for p roviding fossil evidence for the high mass stars from earlier in the Universe.…
We demonstrate the power of the black hole mass gap as a novel probe of fundamental physics. New light particles that couple to the Standard Model can act as an additional source of energy loss in the cores of population-III stars,…
Black holes are a common feature of the Universe. They are observed as stellar mass black holes spread throughout galaxies and as supermassive objects in their centres. Observations of stars orbiting close to the centre of our Galaxy…
Supermassive black hole mass estimates are derived for 1743 galaxies from the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue using the recently revised empirical relation between supermassive black hole mass and the luminosity of the host spheroid. The MGC…
The compact X-ray source in the eclipsing X-ray binary IC 10 X-1 has reigned for years as ostensibly the most massive stellar-mass black hole, with a mass estimated to be about twice that of its closest rival. However, striking results…
The characteristics of black-hole X-ray binaries can be used to obtain information about their evolutionary history and the process of black-hole formation. In this paper I focus on systems with donor masses lower than the inferred…
While the number of stellar-mass black holes detected in X-rays or as gravitational wave sources is steadily increasing, the known population remains orders of magnitude smaller than predicted by stellar evolution theory. A significant…
Supermassive black holes are believed to be ubiquitous at the centers of galaxies. Measuring their masses is extremely challenging yet essential for understanding their role in the formation and evolution of cosmic structure. We present a…
If primordial black holes constitute the dark matter, stars forming in dark-matter dominated environments with low velocity dispersions, such as ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, may capture a black hole at birth. The capture probability is…
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…
This paper reviews some of the recent observational results on stellar mass black hole candidates. Over the last decade, much of the progress in this field has been achieved through the study of transient X--ray binary sources which shine…
We describe a program that we have embarked on to estimate the spins of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries. We fit the continuum X-ray spectrum of the radiation from the accretion disk using the standard thin disk model, and extract…
The black hole masses measured from gravitational wave observations appear to cluster around specific mass values. Consequently, the primary~(and chirp) mass distribution of binary black holes inferred using these measurements shows four…
We show that the mass-segregation solution for the steady state distribution of stars around a massive black hole (MBH) has two branches: the known weak segregation solution (Bahcall & Wolf 1977), and a newly discovered strong segregation…
We discuss two methods to estimate black hole (BH) masses using X-ray data only: from the X-ray variability amplitude and from the photon index Gamma. The first method is based on the anti-correlation between BH mass and X-ray variability…
We explore the potential cumulative energy production of stellar mass black holes in early galaxies. Stellar mass black holes may accrete substantially from the higher density interstellar media of primordial galaxies, and their energy…
Coalescing massive black hole binaries are powerful emitters of gravitational waves, in the LISA sensitivity range for masses M_BH ~ 10^{4-7} M_sun. According to hierarchical galaxy merger models, binary black holes should form frequently,…
The capture and subsequent inspiral of stellar mass black holes on eccentric orbits by central massive black holes, is one of the more interesting likely sources of gravitational radiation detectable by LISA. We estimate the rate of…
The majority of the ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in external galaxies are believed to be accreting black holes in binary systems; some of the black holes could be as massive as $\sim 100-1000 \ms$. We have performed evolution…
This review summarizes the observational constraints on the mass spectrum of compact objects in X-ray binaries. We currently have 20 X-ray binaries with confirmed black holes, based on dynamical information (i.e. mass in excess of 3 Msun).…