  We present an analysis of the degree of energy equipartition in a sample of
101 Monte Carlo numerical simulations of globular clusters (GCs) hosting either
a system of stellar-mass black holes (BHS), an intermediate-mass black hole
(IMBH) or neither of them. For the first time, we systematically explore the
signatures that the presence of BHS or IMBHs produces on the degree of energy
equipartition and if these signatures could be found in current observations.
We show that a BHS can halt the evolution towards energy equipartition in the
cluster centre. We also show that this effect grows stronger with the number of
stellar-mass black holes in the GC. The signatures introduced by IMBHs depend
on how dominant their masses are to the GCs and for how long the IMBH has
co-evolved with its host GCs. IMBHs with a mass fraction below 2% of the
cluster mass produce a similar dynamical effect to BHS, halting the energy
equipartition evolution. IMBHs with a mass fraction larger than 2% can produce
an inversion of the observed mass-dependency of the velocity dispersion, where
the velocity dispersion grows with mass. We compare our results with
observations of Galactic GCs and show that the observed range of the degree of
energy equipartition in real clusters is consistent with that found in our
analysis. In particular, we show that some Galactic GCs fall within the
anomalous behaviour expected for systems hosting a BHS or an IMBH and are
promising candidates for further dynamical analysis.
