Using astrometric wobble to find black holes with Gaia

In this paper, we develop techniques for observing black holes by using the Gaia observatories astrometric features. Our technique differs from existing techniques by taking a detailed look at a system’s orbit and how it evolves with time. We looked at what we could expect each individual measurement to look like and took into account what the estimated uncertainties were for individual measurements. We then used these simulated measurements and a Chi-Squared test to examine whether we would be able to detect an acceleration for a random system with a black hole. Using this set-up, we were able to find out the distance out to which we expect to be able to distinguish accelerating systems. Our results indicate that we will most likely be able to detect approximately 100 black holes with Gaia.