VVV Survey Observations of a Microlensing Stellar Mass Black Hole Candidate in the Field of the Globular Cluster NGC 6553

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a long-duration microlensing event near NGC 6553, suggesting the lens could be a stellar-mass black hole, with implications for understanding old black hole populations.

Contribution

It presents the first candidate microlensing event potentially caused by an old stellar-mass black hole in a globular cluster using near-infrared VVV survey data.

Findings

Candidate black hole lens with mass 1.5-3.5 solar masses

Event located close to globular cluster NGC 6553

Possible identification of the oldest black hole

Abstract

We report the discovery of a large timescale candidate microlensing event of a bulge stellar source based on near-infrared observations with the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea Survey (VVV). The new microlensing event is projected only 3.5 arcmin away from the center of the globular cluster NGC 6553. The source appears to be a bulge giant star with magnitude Ks = 13.52, based on the position in the color-magnitude diagram. The foreground lens may be located in the globular cluster, which has well-known parameters such as distance and proper motions. If the lens is a cluster member, we can directly estimate its mass simply following Paczynski et al. (1996) which is a modified version of the more general case due to Refsdal. In that case, the lens would be a massive stellar remnant, with M = 1.5-3.5 Msun. If the blending fraction of the microlensing event appears to be small, and this lens would represent a good isolated black hole (BH) candidate, that would be the oldest BH known. Alternative explanations (with a larger blending fraction) also point to a massive stellar remnant if the lens is located in the Galactic disk and does not belong to the globular cluster.