How to find and weigh single black holes?

Speaker and affiliation: 
Associate Professor Łukasz Wyrzykowski (Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory)
Date: 
Tue, 2016-04-05 12:30
Venue: 
Room 118 in NCBJ pavilion at 69 Hoża str. in Warsaw
Abstract: 

The recent discovery of gravitational waves has proven that black holes do exist. However, we still do knot know how many black holes are there in our Galaxy and how massive they are. Black holes should terminate evolution of all massive stars. Unfortunately, black hole masses inferable from experimental data acquired for X-ray double systems do not agree with theoretical predictions.

To solve that issue, a search for single black holes using the gravitational microlensing focussing method will be proposed during the seminar. Analysis of data acquired within the OGLE-III project between 2001 and 2009 has suggested numerous candidates for black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs. The method to use the Gaia cosmic mission to precisely determine masses of lone black holes will also be discussed.


All interested persons are invited,
Agnieszka Majczyna

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