The population of stellar black holes (SBHs) in the Galaxy and galaxies generally is poorly known in both number and distribution. SBHs are the fossil record of the massive stars in galaxy evolution and may have produced some (if not all) of the intermediate mass (gsim100Msun) black holes (IMBHs) and, in turn, the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei. For the first time, a Galaxy-wide census of accreting black holes, and their more readily recognizable tracer population, accreting neutron stars (NSs), could be measured with a wide-field hard X-ray imaging survey and soft X-ray and optical/IR prompt followup -- as proposed for the EXIST mission.
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