A Determination of the Spin of the Black Hole Primary in LMC X-1

Gou, Lijun; McClintock, Jeffrey E.; Liu, Jifeng; Narayan, Ramesh; Steiner, James F.; Remillard, Ronald A.; Orosz, Jerome A.; Davis, Shane W.; Ebisawa, Ken; Schlegel, Eric M.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/701/2/1076

Cited by 145 publications

(156 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…−0.07 deduced [40] for the black hole primary in the extragalactic X-ray binary LMC X-1 is hard to reconcile with the young age (∼ 5 · 10 6 yr) of the system, if the spin were not natal. For concreteness, we assume that the parameter α for the black hole is small, α 1/2, so initially the fastest superradiant level is the 2p level with l = m = 1.…”

Section: Black Hole Regge Trajectoriesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Exploring the string axiverse with precision black hole physics

2011

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It has recently been suggested that the presence of a plenitude of light axions, an Axiverse, is evidence for the extra dimensions of string theory. We discuss the observational consequences of these axions on astrophysical black holes through the Penrose superradiance process. When an axion Compton wavelength is comparable to the size of a black hole, the axion binds to the black hole "nucleus" forming a gravitational atom in the sky. The occupation number of superradiant atomic levels, fed by the energy and angular momentum of the black hole, grows exponentially. The black hole spins down and an axion Bose-Einstein condensate cloud forms around it. When the attractive axion self-interactions become stronger than the gravitational binding energy, the axion cloud collapses, a phenomenon known in condensed matter physics as "Bosenova". The existence of axions is first diagnosed by gaps in the mass vs spin plot of astrophysical black holes. For young black holes the allowed values of spin are quantized, giving rise to "Regge trajectories" inside the gap region. The axion cloud can also be observed directly either through precision mapping of the near horizon geometry or through gravitational waves coming from the Bosenova explosion, as well as axion transitions and annihilations in the gravitational atom. Our estimates suggest that these signals are detectable in upcoming experiments, such as Advanced LIGO, AGIS, and LISA. Current black hole spin measurements imply an upper bound on the QCD axion decay constant of 2 · 10 17 GeV, while Advanced LIGO can detect signals from a QCD axion cloud with a decay constant as low as the GUT scale. We finally discuss the possibility of observing the γ-rays associated with the Bosenova explosion and, perhaps, the radio waves from axion-to-photon conversion for the QCD axion.

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Section: Black Hole Regge Trajectoriesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Exploring the string axiverse with precision black hole physics

2011

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“…By fitting the simulated spectra with KERRBB (Kulkarni et al 2011) and BHSPEC (Zhu et al 2012), the spin is found to be systematically overestimated as a result of the increased disc brightness. Crucially, the typical error resulting from use of the Novikov-Thorne profile is far less than the errors associated with the system parameters of mass, inclination and distance (see Gou et al 2009;Steiner et al 2010); the spin values derived from GRAD based models are therefore reliable where the errors on the system parameters dominate.…”

Section: Beyond the Simple Picturementioning

confidence: 99%

Black Hole Spin: Theory and Observation

Middleton¹

2016

Astrophysics of Black Holes

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In the standard paradigm, astrophysical black holes can be described solely by their mass and angular momentum -commonly referred to as 'spin' -resulting from the process of their birth and subsequent growth via accretion. Whilst the mass has a standard Newtonian interpretation, the spin does not, with the effect of non-zero spin leaving an indelible imprint on the space-time closest to the black hole. As a consequence of relativistic frame-dragging, particle orbits are affected both in terms of stability and precession, which impacts on the emission characteristics of accreting black holes both stellar mass in black hole binaries (BHBs) and supermassive in active galactic nuclei (AGN). Over the last 30 years, techniques have been developed that take into account these changes to estimate the spin which can then be used to understand the birth and growth of black holes and potentially the powering of powerful jets. In this chapter we provide a broad overview of both the theoretical effects of spin, the means by which it can be estimated and the results of ongoing campaigns.

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“…BH spin is commonly expressed in terms of the dimensionless parameter a * ≡ cJ /GM 2 with |a * | 1, where M and J are the BH mass and angular momentum, and c and G are the speed of light and Newton's constant, respectively. While mass measurements of stellar-mass BHs have been made for decades, the first spin measurements have been achieved only during the past three years McClintock et al 2006;Liu et al 2008;Gou et al 2009;Miller et al 2009, and references therein). Meanwhile, the spins of supermassive BHs also have been measured (Brenneman & Reynolds 2006;Miniutti et al 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The CF method has been applied only to spectral data obtained in the thermal dominant (TD) state (or very recently to a near-TD intermediate state; Gou et al 2009). The TD state is chiefly characterized by the dominance of the soft, thermal disk component of emission.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Black Hole Spin via the X-Ray Continuum-Fitting Method: Beyond the Thermal Dominant State

Steiner

McClintock

Remillard

et al. 2009

ApJ

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All prior work on measuring the spins of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) via the X-ray continuum-fitting (CF) method has relied on the use of weakly Comptonized spectra obtained in the thermal dominant (TD) state. Using a self-consistent Comptonization model, we show that one can analyze spectra that exhibit strong power-law components and obtain values of the inner disk radius, and hence spin, that are consistent with those obtained in the TD state. Specifically, we analyze many RXTE spectra of two BH transients, H1743−322 and XTE J1550−564, and we demonstrate that the radius of the inner edge of the accretion disk remains constant to within a few percent as the strength of the Comptonized component increases by an order of magnitude, i.e., as the fraction of the thermal seed photons that are scattered approaches 25%. We conclude that the CF method can be applied to a much wider body of data than previously thought possible, and to sources that have never been observed to enter the TD state (e.g., Cyg X-1).

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A Determination of the Spin of the Black Hole Primary in LMC X-1

Cited by 145 publications

References 57 publications

Exploring the string axiverse with precision black hole physics

Exploring the string axiverse with precision black hole physics

Black Hole Spin: Theory and Observation

Measuring Black Hole Spin via the X-Ray Continuum-Fitting Method: Beyond the Thermal Dominant State

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