Stellar Mass Black Holes and Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources

TL;DR

This paper reviews the properties and implications of stellar-mass black holes and ultraluminous X-ray sources, emphasizing empirical rules linking accretion and outflow that inform our understanding of black hole feedback across cosmic scales.

Contribution

It synthesizes recent empirical findings on black hole accretion and outflow, highlighting their significance for understanding black hole feedback mechanisms.

Findings

Empirical rules connecting accretion and outflow in stellar-mass black holes.

Patterns of behavior that help understand black hole feedback.

Implications for black hole influence on cosmological scales.

Abstract

We review the likely population, observational properties, and broad implications of stellar-mass black holes and ultraluminous x-ray sources. We focus on the clear empirical rules connecting accretion and outflow that have been established for stellar-mass black holes in binary systems in the past decade and a half. These patterns of behavior are probably the keys that will allow us to understand black hole feedback on the largest scales over cosmological time scales.