TBA Searching for Stellar Mass Black Holes in the Milky Way
The population of stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way is almost entirely unexplored. Only a dozen black holes are confidently known in our Galaxy – all in binaries. As a result, many basic properties of black holes remain uncertain at the order of magnitude level, including the total number of black holes in the Milky Way, the mass function, the binary fraction, and whether black holes receive kicks at birth. To constrain these properties, we need to find and study a larger population of black holes, both in isolation and in binary systems. High-precision astrometry is opening a new window onto black holes. I will present progress on our search for black holes using both gravitational lensing for isolated black holes and astrometric wobble for black holes in binaries.
