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| Selfie with Prof Dr Hugues Sana |
I attended a lecture on March 23, during the annual VVS meeting by Prof Dr Hugues Sana on the search for missing black hole binaries. Stellar-mass black holes are the final remnants of stars born with more than 15 solar masses. Billions are expected to reside in the Local Group, yet only a few are known (according Hugues Sana only 59!), mostly detected through X-rays emitted as they accrete material from a companion star. He discussed the Doppler wobbling of binaries using spectral analysis. Detailed analysis of the spectrum of such binaries result in a hidden spectrum meaning the precence of two stars. Of no hidden spectrum is found a black hole is responsable for the wobbling. The team found a (near-)circular orbit and kinematics of VFTS 243 implying that the collapse of the progenitor into a black hole was associated with little or no ejected material or black-hole kick.
