Dr. David Harris presented the topic "Investigating the Missing Black Holes of the Milky Way". One out of every thousand stars in the galaxy will become a black hole at the end of its life. Thus, we expect to find a large number of black holes throughout the galaxy. However, we detect far fewer black holes than we would expect given this reasoning. Using simulations, Dr. Harris attempted to demonstrate that black holes are being ejected into inclined, out-of-disk orbits by their natal supernova kicks, showing that the distribution of black holes in the galaxy simulation does not match the initial distribution of stars. Additional explanations, including the difficulty of detecting black holes, were discussed.
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