Related papers: Black Holes in Astrophysics
Black holes were predicted by Einstein General Relativity (GR). Because of unusual properties of these objects their existence is almost unbelievable. There are gravitation theories which do not predict the black hole appearance. By now,…
We pioneer the black hole mass gap as a powerful new tool for constraining new particles. A new particle that couples to the Standard Model---such as an axion---acts as an additional source of loss in the cores of population-III stars,…
Black holes are perhaps the most strange and fascinating objects known to exist in the universe. Our understanding of space and time is pushed to its limits by the extreme conditions found in these objects. They can be used as natural…
Black holes are by definition black, and therefore cannot be directly observed by using electromagnetic radiations. Convincing identification of black holes must necessarily depend on the identification of a very specially behaving matter…
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs), with masses comparable to stars, are a major constituent of our Milky Way galaxy. This chapter describes the landscape of challenging, and long-sought efforts to identify these objects in the Galaxy. The…
Astrophysical black hole candidates are thought to be the Kerr black holes of general relativity, but there is not yet direct observational evidence that the spacetime geometry around these objects is described by the Kerr solution. The…
Classical black holes are solutions of the field equations of General Relativity. Many astronomical observations suggest that black holes really exist in nature. However, an unambiguous proof for their existence is still lacking. Neither…
We discuss masses of stellar black holes found in binary systems and errors in their determination. The observed mass distribution has a broad shape within the range $4-16 M_\odot$ without visible concentration to some preferred value. On…
The high sensitivity of upcoming space-based gravitational wave detectors suggests the possibility that if halo dark matter were composed of primordial black holes (PBHs) with mass between $10^{16}$ g and 10$^{20}$ g, the gravitational…
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…
It has been suggested that there are $\sim 10^5$ black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) binaries in our Galaxy. However, despite the effort of intensive radio search for decades, none of these binaries has been found to date. These binaries are…
Microquasars are compact objects (stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars) that mimic, on a smaller scale, many of the phenomena seen in quasars. Their discovery provided new insights into the physics of relativistic jets observed…
Determining the final result of black hole-neutron star mergers, and in particular the amount of matter remaining outside the black hole at late times and its properties, has been one of the main motivations behind the numerical simulation…
Rotational superradiance generates the amplification of incoming waves of sufficiently low frequency when scattered with a rotating absorbing body. This may be used to discover new \emph{bosonic} particles of mass $m_b$ if the rotating body…
General relativistic simulations of black hole-neutron star mergers have currently been limited to low-mass black holes (less than 7 solar mass), even though population synthesis models indicate that a majority of mergers might involve more…
The distribution of black hole masses in galaxies is constrained by photometric and kinematic studies of individual galaxies, and by the properties of the quasar population. I review our understanding of these topics, present new results of…
Large extra dimensions have been proposed as a possible solution to the hierarchy problem in physics. One of the suggested models, the RS2 braneworld model, makes a prediction that black holes evaporate by Hawking radiation on a short…
Proof that black holes exist will likely require confirmation of the existence of event horizons. The common assumption that the mere existence of large compact masses proves the case for black holes is an unwarranted extrapolation of…
We use dynamical mass measurements of 16 black holes in transient low-mass X-ray binaries to infer the stellar black hole mass distribution in the parent population. We find that the observations are best described by a narrow mass…
Recent gravitational wave observations include possible detections of black hole - neutron star binary mergers. As with binary black hole mergers, numerical simulations help characterize the sources. For binary systems with neutron star…