A dataset provided by the European Space Agency

Proposal ID 0320068
Obs ID 03200680001
Title Search for Isolated Stellar Mass Black Holes in Taurus GMC
Download Data Associated to the proposal https://isla.esac.esa.int/tap/download/bundle?format=ascii_curl&product_id=prop_id:0320068
DOI https://doi.org/10.57780/esa-2mxweof
Author Grindlay
Abstract We propose the first hard X-ray survey of the closest giant molecular cloud complex, Taurus-Auriga, to search for isolated stellar mass black holes accreting from the dense gas in the GMC. Black holes are increasingly found in X-ray binary systems as luminous hard X-ray sources and must exist as isolated objects which could be detected by their Bondi-Hoyle accretion from the dense ISM of a GMC. Making conservative assumptions about accretion efficiencies as being only 1E-5, a 10Msun stellar mass BH with space velocity 10 km/s passing through the cloud should be detectable by IBIS in a 150ksec observation. The estimated total stellar BH population in the Galaxy would predict several in this GMC complex, which optimally fills the IBIS field of view. At only 140pc distance, hard X-ray luminosities of only 10^32 erg/s can be detected, making this the most sensitive possible survey for isolated stellar mass BHs possible with INTEGRAL.
Publications
Temporal Coverage 2006-08-01T06:03:19Z / 2006-08-03T02:23:16Z
Version 1.0
Mission Description The INTEGRAL (International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) mission, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on October 17, 2002, was designed to study high-energy phenomena in the universe. INTEGRAL was operating until february 2025 and it was equipped with three high-energy instruments: the Imager on Board the INTEGRAL Satellite (IBIS), the Spectrometer on INTEGRAL (SPI), and the JEM-X (Joint European Monitor for X-rays). Its Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) provided optical V-band magnitude measurements, complementing the high-energy observations.
Creator Contact https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/integral/helpdesk
Date Published 2025-03-25T09:54:32Z
Publisher And Registrant European Space Agency
Credit Guidelines European Space Agency, Grindlay, 2025, 'Search for Isolated Stellar Mass Black Holes in Taurus GMC', 1.0, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.57780/esa-2mxweof