A black hole detected in the young massive LMC cluster NGC 1850

Abstract

We report the detection of a black hole (NGC 1850 BH1) in the $\sim$100 Myr-old massive cluster NGC~1850 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is in a binary system with a main-sequence turn-off star (4.9 $\pm$ 0.4 M${}_{\odot }$), which is starting to fill its Roche Lobe and becoming distorted. Using 17 epochs of VLT/MUSE observations we detected radial velocity variations exceeding 300 km/s associated to the target star, linked to the ellipsoidal variations measured by OGLE-IV in the optical bands. Under the assumption of a semi-detached system, the simultaneous modelling of radial velocity and light curves constraints the orbital inclination of the binary to ($38\pm 2$)${}^{\circ }$, resulting in a true mass of the unseen companion of $11.1_{-2.4}^{+2.1}$ $M_{\odot }$. This represents the first direct dynamical detection of a black hole in a young massive cluster, opening up the possibility of studying the initial mass function and the early dynamical evolution of such compact objects in high-density environments.

11 pages, 8 figures, 4 Tables. Accepted for publication by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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