OGLE-2011-BLG-0462: An Isolated Stellar-mass Black Hole Confirmed Using New HST Astrometry and Updated Photometry

Abstract The long-duration Galactic-bulge microlensing event OGLE-2011-BLG-0462 produced relativistic astrometric deflections of the source star, which we measured using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations taken at eight epochs over ∼6 yr. Analysis of the microlensing light curve and astrometry led our group (followed by other independent groups) to conclude that the lens is an isolated stellar-mass black hole (BH)—the first and only one unambiguously discovered to date. There have now been three additional epochs of HST observations, increasing the astrometric time baseline to 11 yr. Additionally, the ground-based OGLE data have been updated. We have reanalyzed the data, including the new HST astrometry, and photometry obtained with 16 different telescopes. The source lies only <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> <mml:mover accent="true"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>.</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>″</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mover> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:math> from a bright neighbor, making it crucial to perform precise subtraction of its point-spread function (PSF) in the astrometric measurements of the source. Moreover, we show that it is essential to perform a separate PSF subtraction for each individual HST frame as part of the reductions. Our final solution yields a lens mass of 7.15 ± 0.83 M ⊙ . Combined with the lack of detected light from the lens at late HST epochs, the BH nature of the lens is conclusively verified. The BH lies at a distance of 1.52 ± 0.15 kpc, and it is moving with a space velocity of 51.1 ± 7.5 km s −1 relative to the stars in the neighborhood. We compare our results with those of other studies and discuss reasons for the differences. We also searched for binary companions of the BH at a range of separations, but found no evidence for any.