TY - JOUR
T1 - A black hole detected in the young massive LMC cluster NGC 1850
AU - Saracino, S.
AU - Kamann, S.
AU - Guarcello, M. G.
AU - Usher, C.
AU - Bastian, N.
AU - Cabrera-Ziri, I.
AU - Gieles, M.
AU - Dreizler, S.
AU - Da Costa, G. S.
AU - Husser, T. O.
AU - Hénault-Brunet, V.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.
PY - 2022/4/1
Y1 - 2022/4/1
N2 - We report on the detection of a black hole (NGC 1850 BH1) in the ∼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 ± 0.4 M·), which is starting to fill its Roche lobe and is becoming distorted. Using 17 epochs of Very Large Telescope/Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer observations, we detected radial velocity variations exceeding 300 km s-1 associated with the target star, linked to the ellipsoidal variations measured by the fourth phase of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment in the optical bands. Under the assumption of a semidetached system, the simultaneous modelling of radial velocity and light curves constrains the orbital inclination of the binary to 38° ± 2°, resulting in a true mass of the unseen companion of 11.1 -2.4+2.1\M⊙. 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.
AB - We report on the detection of a black hole (NGC 1850 BH1) in the ∼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 ± 0.4 M·), which is starting to fill its Roche lobe and is becoming distorted. Using 17 epochs of Very Large Telescope/Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer observations, we detected radial velocity variations exceeding 300 km s-1 associated with the target star, linked to the ellipsoidal variations measured by the fourth phase of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment in the optical bands. Under the assumption of a semidetached system, the simultaneous modelling of radial velocity and light curves constrains the orbital inclination of the binary to 38° ± 2°, resulting in a true mass of the unseen companion of 11.1 -2.4+2.1\M⊙. 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.
KW - Binaries: spectroscopic
KW - Galaxies: photometry
KW - Globular clusters: individual: NGC 1850
KW - Techniques: imaging spectroscopy
KW - Techniques: radial velocities
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85125502992&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stab3159
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stab3159
M3 - Article
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 511
SP - 2914
EP - 2924
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 2
ER -