On the Search of the "Elusive" Intermediate Mass Black-Holes
Abstract
Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are accreting black holes for which their X-ray properties have been seen to be different to the case of stellar-mass black hole binaries. For most of the cases their intrinsic energy spectra are well described by a cold accretion disc (thermal) plus a curved high-energy emission components. The mass of the black hole (BH) derived from the thermal disc component is usually in the range of 100-105 solar masses, which have led to the idea that this can represent strong evidence of the Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBH), proposed to exist by theoretical studies but with no firm detection (as a class) so far. Recent theoretical and observational developments are leading towards the idea that these sources are instead compact objects accreting at an unusual super-Eddington regime instead. On the other hand, gravitational waves have been seen to be a useful tool for finding (some of these) IMBHs. We give a brief overview about the recent advent of the discovery of gravitational waves and their relationship with these so far elusive IMBHs.
- Publication:
-
Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica Conference Series
- Pub Date:
- April 2019
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.1802.07149
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1802.07149
- Bibcode:
- 2019RMxAC..51...96C
- Keywords:
-
- accretion;
- accretion-discs;
- black hole physics;
- cosmology: early universe;
- galaxies: formation;
- gravitational waves;
- X-rays: general;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to RMxAC for the conference Astrorob 2017 ( http://astrorob.iaa.es ). Caption of Fig. 4 updated