| 30th of August 2018 |
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| A search for intermediate mass black holes |
| by Tremou et al. |
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Tremou et al. present the results of an ultra-deep, comprehensive
radio continuum survey for the accretion signatures of
intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in globular clusters. The
sample, undertaken with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array and the
Australia Telescope Compact Array, comprises 50 Galactic globular
clusters. No compelling evidence for an IMBH is found in any cluster
in the sample, strengthening the idea that IMBHs with masses > 1000
solar masses are rare or absent in globular clusters. The team named
their project the MAVERIC (Milky Way ATCA and VLA Exploration of
Radio-sources in Clusters) survey.
The two ATCA images above show the central 12.2 × 12.2 arcseconds for each cluster. The position of the cluster center is marked as an orange circle, and its size is matched to the wander radius of a putative IMBH. Synthesized beams are shown in blue in the bottom-left corner of all images. More details are given in the paper, published in the Astrophysical Journal. |