INTERMEDIATE BLACK HOLE

INTERMEDIATE BLACK HOLES: SCIENTISTS HAVE FOUND THE COSMIC OBJECT’S AWKWARD PHASE

Between stellar and supermassive black holes, there is an evolutionary phase of intermediate black holes.

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We describe ongoing searches for intermediate-mass black holes with MBH ≈ 10-105 M⊙. We review a range of search mechanisms, both dynamical and those that rely on accretion signatures. We find the following conclusions: Dynamical and accretion signatures alike point to a high fraction of 109-1010 M⊙ galaxies hosting black holes with MBH∼ 105 M⊙. In contrast, there are no solid detections of black holes in globular clusters. 

There are few observational constraints on black holes in any environment with MBH ≈ 100-104 M⊙. Considering low-mass galaxies with dynamical black hole masses and constraining limits, we find that the MBH-σ* relation continues unbroken to MBH ∼105 M⊙, albeit with large scatter. We believe the scatter is at least partially driven by a broad range in black hole masses, because the occupation fraction appears to be relatively high in these galaxies. We fold the observed scaling relations with our empirical limits on occupation fraction and the galaxy mass function to put observational bounds on the black hole mass function in galaxy nuclei. We are pessimistic that local demographic observations of galaxy nuclei alone could constrain seeding mechanisms, although either high-redshift luminosity functions or robust measurements of off-nuclear black holes could begin to discriminate models.

In 2020, astronomers reported the possible finding of an intermediate-mass black hole, named 3XMM J215022.4-055108, in the direction of the Aquarius constellation, about 740 million light years from Earth.In 2021 the discovery of a 100,000 solar-mass intermediate-mass black hole in the globular cluster B023-G78 in the Andromeda Galaxy was posted to arXiv in a preprint.

Intermediate-Mass black hole (IMBH) is a class of black hole with mass in the range 102–105 solar masses: significantly more than stellar black holes but less than supermassive black holes.One of the theories of intermediate mass black hole formation has to do with ‘hierarchical growth’.

                           J.Loshini(2213721033015)