What Mass Segregation in NGC 2298 Says About the Presence of an IMBH

Details What Mass Segregation in NGC 2298 Says About the Presence of an IMBH What Mass Segregation in NGC 2298 Says About the Presence of an IMBH

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21343703g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #437.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.309

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

A definitive detection of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) would carry significant consequences for many sub-fields of astrophysics. As a result of the difficulties associated with direct detection of IMBH signatures, we continue the search for indirect evidence of their existence. In previous work, we described our method for suggesting the presence of an IMBH by examining the radial variations in the average mass of main sequence stars. This method can be applied to Galactic globular clusters that are dynamically old enough - those that have experienced at least 5 initial half-mass relaxation times - and that are not too influenced by the Galactic tidal field. Here, we present the results of the application of our method to NGC 2298 using ACS-HST photometry extending from the center to more than twice the half-light radius of the cluster. We find that the profile of mass segregation closely mimics those of our simulations without a large central mass, thus making it very unlikely to harbor an IMBH. This work was supported in part by Hubble Theory grant HSTAR1128406A and by NASA ATFP grant NNX08AH29G.

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