0320068

We propose the first hard X-ray survey of the closest giant molecular cloud complex Taurus-Auriga to search for isolated stellar mass black holes accreting from the dense gas in the GMC. Black holes are increasingly found in X-ray binary systems as luminous hard X-ray sources and must exist as isolated objects which could be detected by their Bondi-Hoyle accretion from the dense ISM of a GMC. Making conservative assumptions about accretion efficiencies as being only 1E-5 a 10Msun stellar mass BH with space velocity 10 km/s passing through the cloud should be detectable by IBIS in a 150ksec observation. The estimated total stellar BH population in the Galaxy would predict several in this GMC complex which optimally fills the IBIS field of view. At only 140pc distance hard X-ray luminosities of only 10^32 erg/s can be detected making this the most sensitive possible survey for isolated stellar mass BHs possible with INTEGRAL. [truncated! Please see actual data for full text]