Related papers: Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
Primordial black holes possibly formed in the early universe could provide a significant fraction of the dark matter and would be unique probes of inflation. A smoking gun for their discovery would be the detection of a subsolar mass…
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) represent the natural end states of massive stars. It is estimated that $10^8$ stellar-mass BHs are present in the Milky Way galaxy, a significant fraction of which are expected to be isolated. Despite their…
It has been proposed that the first, intermediate-mass ($\approx 10^{5-6}~M_\odot$) black holes might form through direct collapse of unpolluted gas in atomic-cooling halos exposed to a strong Lyman-Werner (LW) or near-infrared (NIR)…
Current theoretical models predict a mass gap with a dearth of stellar black holes (BHs) between roughly $50\,M_\odot$ and $100\,M_\odot$, while, above the range accessible through massive star evolution, intermediate-mass BHs (IMBHs) still…
Recent work revealed the existence of a galaxy "millimetre fundamental plane of black hole accretion", a tight correlation between nuclear $1$mm luminosity, intrinsic $2$ - $10$keV X-ray luminosity and supermassive black hole mass,…
Recently (Brown \& Bethe 1994) it was suggested that most stars with main sequence mass in the range of about $18 - 30 M_{\odot}$ explode, returning matter to the Galaxy, and then go into low-mass ($\geq 1.5 M_{\odot}$) black holes. Even…
The supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy can be weighed, in rare but realistic cases, when the galaxy acts as a strong gravitational lens. The central image that should be produced by the lens is either destroyed or…
In this work we investigate the accretion of cosmological fluids onto an intermediate-mass black hole at the centre of a globular cluster, focusing on the influence of the parent stellar system on the accretion flow. We show that the…
Surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope find supermassive black holes (BHs) of 10**6 to 10**9.5 solar masses in every galaxy that has an elliptical-galaxy-like "bulge" component. BHs appear to be standard equipment in galaxy bulges. At the…
We have re-examined the relation between the mass of the central black holes in nearby galaxies, M_bh, and the stellar mass of the surrounding spheroid or bulge, M_bulge. For a total of 30 galaxies bulge masses were derived through Jeans…
It is argued that the bulk of black holes (BH) in the universe are primordial (PBH). This assertion is strongly supported by the recent astronomical observations, which allow to conclude that supermassive BHs with $M= (10^6 - 10^9) M_\odot$…
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…
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,…
We investigate the effects of black hole mergers in star clusters on the black hole mass function. As black holes are not produced in pair-instability supernovae, it is suggested that there is a dearth of high mass stellar black holes. This…
We describe ongoing searches for intermediate-mass black holes with M_BH ~ 100-10^5 M_sun. We review a range of search mechanisms, both dynamical and those that rely on accretion signatures. We find that dynamical and accretion signatures…
Spectroscopic and photometric observations show that many globular clusters host multiple stellar populations, challenging the common paradigm that globular clusters are "simple stellar populations" composed of stars of uniform age and…
It is firmly established that the stellar mass distribution is smooth, covering the range 0.1-100 Msun. It is to be expected that the masses of the ensuing compact remnants correlate with the masses of their progenitor stars, and thus it is…
We present the first homogeneous sample of intermediate-mass black hole candidates in active galactic nuclei. Starting with broad-line active nuclei from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we use the linewidth-luminosity-mass scaling relation to…
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…
Massive stellar clumps in high redshift galaxies interact and migrate to the center to form a bulge and exponential disk in <1 Gyr. Here we consider the fate of intermediate mass black holes (BHs) that might form by massive-star coalescence…