Abstract Details
| Name: Prajval Shastri Affiliation: Indian Institute of Astrophysics Conference ID: ASI2015_905 Title : Search for IMBHs from Microlensing in Globular Clusters Authors and Co-Authors : Prajwel P J(Christ University),A. Rozario (Christ University, Bengaluru), M. Safonova (Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru), P. Shastri (Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru) Abstract Type : Poster Abstract Category : Stars, The Milky Way Galaxy and its neighbours Abstract : Although there has been no conclusive observational evidence for the Intermediate mass black holes (IMBH) in spite of substantial theoretical backing, it has long been suggested that small stellar systems such as dwarf galaxies and globular clusters (GC) may host central IMBH. Most attempts to demonstrate their existence are indirect and present enormous observational difficulties due to crowding of stars. In 2010 our group has initiated monitoring of a set of selected GCs looking for possible gravitational microlensing signature of a putative central black hole (BH). Here the BH acts as a lens, inducing amplification of light of globular cluster stars passing behind. We are developing a semi-automated data pipeline to transform hundreds of CCD frames into interpretable light curves and extract variability, both periodic and non-periodic. This is a flexible modular pipeline, built with IRAF and shell scripts, that has wide applicability. The pipeline includes the differential imaging analysis --- the DIAPL package developed by W. Pych (2012). We will demonstrate the fast performance of the first three modules of the data reduction pipeline in this presentation. We also present the first results of our project -- the differential imaging analysis of the GC M13 and describe the steps we are employing to put a limit on the presence of an IMBH. |