Tracing the origin of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in the gravitational-wave era

by Dr Stefano Torniamienti (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg)

Thursday 20 Nov 2025, 11:30 → 12:30 Europe/Rome

Sala Jappelli (Osservatorio astronomico di Padova)

In the last decade, gravitational-wave observations have provided crucial insights into the populations of binary compact objects, helping to address key open questions about their formation history. They have also offered the first compelling evidence for the existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), with masses above 100 MSun.
In this talk, I will discuss several scenarios for the formation of IMBHs. I will explore the uncertainties in stellar and binary evolution, stellar winds, and pair-instability processes that still limit our understanding. I will investigate how dynamical interactions in dense star clusters can lead to IMBH formation via hierarchical mergers, and how these IMBHs may subsequently populate galactic nuclei via cluster migration. Finally, I will show how the comparison with gravitational-wave detections can provide valuable clues to their formation pathways.

 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://unipd.zoom.us/j/82482883288?pwd=MVvmMWSGaiVrGMyAFOdyQG61OAcI7D.1

Meeting ID: 824 8288 3288
Passcode: 072472