Hunting black holes with Gaia
Natalie MashianHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USAAbraham LoebHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
2017en
ABI
Abstract
We predict the number of black holes with stellar companions that are potentially detectable with Gaia astrometry over the course of its 5-yr mission. Our model estimates that nearly 2 × 105 astrometric binaries hosting black holes and stellar companions brighter than Gaia’s detection threshold, G ∼ 20, should be discovered with 5σ sensitivity. Among these detectable binaries, systems with longer orbital periods are favoured, and black hole and stellar companion masses in the range MBH ∼ 6–10 M⊙ and M* ∼ 1–2 M⊙, respectively, are expected to dominate.
Identifiers
Citations and references
Cited by 20 references