Croatian Black Hole School 2010 lecture notes on IMBHs in GCs

Abstract

Black holes are fascinating objects. As a class of solutions to the Einstein equations they have been studied a great deal, yielding a wealth of theoretical results. But do they really exist? What do astronomers really mean when they claim to have observational evidence of their existence? To answer these questions, I will focus on a particular range of black-hole masses, approximately from 100 to 10000 solar masses. Black holes of this size are named Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBHs) and their existence is still heavily disputed, so they will be perfect for illustrating the observational challenges faced by a black hole hunter

These lecture notes are based on the series of invited lectures on IMBHs I delivered at the June 2010 Croatian Black Hole School ( organizer: Jarah Evslin, site: http://antimodave.jimdo.com )

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