THE MASS DISTRIBUTION OF STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLES

The Mass Distribution of Stellar Black Holes

We examine the distribution of masses of black holes in transient low mass X-ray binary systems. A Bayesian analysis suggests that it is probable that six of the seven systems with measured mass functions have black hole masses clustered near seven solar masses. There appears to be a significant gap between the masses of these systems and those of the observed neutron stars. The remaining sourc...

Mergers of accreting stellar-mass black holes

We present post-Newtonian N -body simulations on mergers of accreting stellarmass black holes (BHs), where such general relativistic effects as the pericentre shift and gravitational wave emission are taken into consideration. To elucidate the key physics that regulates mergers of BHs, the dynamical friction and the mass accretion by ambient gas are incorporated. We consider a system composed o...

Mass Measurements of Stellar and Intermediate-Mass Black-Holes

We discuss the method, and potential systematic effects therein, used for measuring the mass of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries. We restrict our discussion to the method that relies on the validity of Kepler’s laws; we refer to this method as the dynamical method. We briefly discuss the implications of the mass distribution of stellar-mass black holes and provide an outlook for futur...

Measuring the Spins of Stellar-Mass Black Holes

Accretion onto the First Stellar Mass Black Holes

The first stars in the universe, forming at redshifts z > 15 in minihalos with masses of order 10M⊙, may leave behind black holes as their remnants. These objects could conceivably serve as "seeds" for much larger black holes observed at redshifts z . 7. We study the growth of the remnant black holes through accretion including for the first time the emitted accretion radiation with adaptive me...