Black holes and neutron stars are the final products of the collapsed cores of massive stars.
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We now detect neutron stars and black holes merging via the detection of gravitational waves.
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What is the mass spectrum of these objects?
Is their formation associated with a kick?
How do pairs of compact objects form?
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I use multiwavelength, multi epoch spectroscopy to hunt for compact objects in the Local Universe.
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I am leading an ESO Large Programme dedicated to study these questions in the Small Magellanic Cloud: Check out the BLOeM page.
Notable relevant publications:
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Shenar et al. 2022, A&A, 665, 148: "Characterization of hidden companions in 51 single-lined spectroscopic binaries"
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Janssens, Shenar et al. 2022, A&A, 658, 129: "Uncovering astrometric black holes with Gaia"
An artist's impression of VFTS 243, the first unambiguous dormant stellar-mass black hole detected outside our Galaxy
Shenar et al. 2022, Nature Astronomy
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Image credit: ESO/L. Calçada