Do Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Exist?
Do Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Exist?
This chapter addresses the existence of intermediate-mass black holes. There is powerful empirical evidence for two classes of black holes, namely, the stellar-mass black holes, with masses a few times that of the Sun, and the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. The considerable gap in mass between these two categories naturally prompts the question whether black holes might exist at other mass scales. In recent years, two lines of evidence have been presented in support of the idea that black holes with masses intermediate between stellar mass and supermassive might exist. Such sources are referred to as intermediate-mass black holes. In both cases the results are currently still ambiguous, and much debated.
Keywords: intermediate-mass black holes, stellar-mass black holes, supermassive black holes
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