Bridging the Gap Between Stellar Mass and Supermassive Black Holes
Abstract
ULXs are extragalactic objects that are located outside the nuclei of their host galaxies with luminosities that exceed the Eddington limit for a 20 Msun black hole. These luminosities have been interpreted as evidence of a new class of intermediate mass black holes with masses between ~100 - 100,000 Msun. The brightest of these objects have luminosities above 1E41 erg/s that cannot be easily explained without intermediate mass black holes. However, the luminosities of the bulk of ULXs could be explained through a combination of mild super-Eddington accretion and beaming. I will present the latest results of observations of the strongest candidate intermediate mass black hole ESO 243-49 HLX-1, as well as a recent study into long-term variability in ULXs that sheds new light on the nature of the rest of the population. I will also discuss an ongoing search for intermediate mass black holes in dwarf galaxies.
- Publication:
-
Half a Century of X-ray Astronomy
- Pub Date:
- September 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012hcxa.confE..82F