Intermediate-mass black holes in Globular Clusters

TL;DR

This study uses integral-field spectroscopy and N-body simulations to detect and analyze intermediate-mass black holes in a homogeneous sample of Galactic globular clusters, advancing understanding of their properties.

Contribution

It provides the first homogeneous integral-field spectroscopic sample of globular clusters for direct comparison of those with and without black holes.

Findings

Detected velocity-dispersion profile rises indicating black holes

Compared observational data with N-body simulations for insights

Established criteria for identifying black holes in clusters

Abstract

For a sample of nine Galactic globular clusters we measured the inner kinematic profiles with integral-field spectroscopy that we combined with existing outer kinematic measurements and HST luminosity profiles. With this information we are able to detect the crucial rise in the velocity-dispersion profile which indicates the presence of a central black hole. In addition, N-body simulations compared to our data will give us a deeper insight in the properties of clusters with black holes and stronger selection criteria for further studies. For the first time, we obtain a homogeneous sample of globular cluster integral- field spectroscopy which allows a direct comparison between clusters with and without an intermediate-mass black hole.