Astronomy Tea Talks at Caltech

'Proper Motions at the Center of Omega Cen: Evidence for an IMBH?'

Omega Cen is the first of the traditional globular
clusters to be found to have a spread in its abundances.
I will briefly review what we know about Omega Cen's
multiple populations, and will show other clusters that
show evidence of multiplicity. Since Omega Cen is more
like a dwarf galaxy than the other globulars, it makes sense
that if any globulars house intermediate-mass black holes,
Omega Cen certainly should. Some recent observations
have shown evidence that it may in fact house a very
massive one. We will examine proper motions from HST
images taken at the cluster center to see if they can tell
us anything about a massive central object.