An upper limit to the mass of black holes in the halo of the galaxy

Abstract

If massive black holes constitute the dark matter in the halo surrounding the Milky Way, the existence of low mass globular clusters in the halo suggests an upper limit to their mass, $M_{_{BH}}$. We use a combination of the impulse approximation and numerical simulations to constrain $M_{_{BH}} \lsim 10~3M_\odot$, otherwise several of the halo globular clusters would be heated to disruption within one half of their lifetime. Taken at face value, this constraint is three orders of magnitude stronger than the previous limit provided by disk heating arguments. However, since the initial mass function of clusters is unknown, we argue that the real constraint is at most, an order of magnitude weaker. Our results rule out cosmological scenarios, such as versions of the Primordial Baryonic Isocurvature fluctuation model, which invoke the low Jeans mass at early epochs to create a large population of black holes of mass $\sim 10~6M_\odot$.