Institute for Advanced Study/Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Failed supernovae, where core collapse leads to the formation of a black hole without an external supernova, have always been one of the possible outcomes when a massive star dies. The observed properties of the dying, progenitor stars, mismatches between the star formation and supernova rates, the black hole mass
function and theoretical studies of the "explodability" of massive stars all suggest that failed supernovae represent 10-30% of core collapses, probably dominated by ~20-25 Msun progenitor stars. I will describe a search for failed supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescope and its first candidate.