Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets

McClintock, Jeffrey E.; Narayan, Ramesh; Steiner, James F.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2227-7_15

Cited by 13 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 153 publications

(132 reference statements)

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“…To date, 10 stellar-mass black holes (7 in our Galaxy, two in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and one in the dwarf galaxy M33) have thermal continuum fitting based spin measurements [43,44,45,46]. Six of these objects have both thermal continuum and X-ray reflection based spin measures, allowing us to examine consistency of results.…”

Section: Accretion Disks X-rays and Black Hole Spinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing black holes spin

Reynolds¹

2019

Nat Astron

175

133

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The spin of a black hole retains the memory of how the black hole grew, and can be a potent source of energy for powering relativistic jets. To understand the diagnostic power and astrophysical significance of black hole spin, however, we must first devise observational methods for measuring spin. Here, I describe the current state of black hole spin measurements, highlighting the progress made by X-ray astronomers, as well as the current excitement of gravitational wave and radio astronomy based techniques. Today's spin measurements are already constraining models for the growth of supermassive black holes and giving new insights into the dynamics of stellar corecollapse, as well as hinting at the physics of relativistic jet production. Future X-ray, radio, and gravitational wave observatories will transform black hole spin into a precision tool for astrophysics and test fundamental theories of gravity.

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Section: Accretion Disks X-rays and Black Hole Spinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing black holes spin

Reynolds¹

2019

Nat Astron

175

133

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“…At higher luminosities the disk may acquire a non-negligible thickness, and the relative importance of a non-vanishing torque at r ISCO may increase. Analyzing a large number of low-luminosity data sets, McClintock et al (2006McClintock et al ( ,2014 [118,117] find excellent agreement for all the individual results. Noble et al (2011) [134], Kulkarni et al (2011) [105], and Zhu et al (2012) [200] study the impact of a non-vanishing inner torque on the radial emission profile and the inferred thermal continuum fitting spin parameter results based on GRMHD simulations.…”

Section: Constraining Black Hole Spacetimes With X-ray Observationsmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…The thermal continuum fitting method (e.g. [198,69,117]) is based on observing the thermal emission of geometrically thin, optically thick accretion disks. The method requires the independent measure- Fig.…”

Section: Constraining Black Hole Spacetimes With X-ray Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Difficulties of quantitative tests of the Kerr-hypothesis with X-ray observations of mass accreting black holes

Krawczynski¹

2018

Gen Relativ Gravit

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X-ray studies of stellar mass black holes in X-ray binaries and mass-accreting supermassive black holes in Active Galactic Nuclei have achieved a high degree of maturity and have delivered detailed information about the astrophysical sources and the physics of black hole accretion. In this article, I review recent progress made towards using the X-ray observations for testing the "Kerr hypothesis" that the background spacetimes of all astrophysical quasi-stationary black holes are described by the Kerr metric. Although the observations have indeed revealed clear evidence for relativistic effects in strong-field gravity, quantitative tests of the Kerr hypothesis still struggle with theoretical and practical difficulties. In this article, I describe several recently introduced test metrics and review the status of constraining the background spacetimes of mass accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes with these test metrics. The main conclusion of the discussion is that astrophysical uncertainties are large compared to the rather small observational differences between the Kerr and non-Kerr metrics precluding quantitative constraints on deviations from the Kerr metric at this point in time. I conclude with discussing future progress enabled by more detailed numerical simulations and by future X-ray spectroscopy, timing, polarimetry, and interferometry missions.

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“…Estimates of the spins of the BHs in Cyg X-1 38 and GRS 1915+105 39 suggest that in these two systems a/m > 0.95. Three other BHs, LMC X-1, M33 X-7, and 4U 1543-47, whose masses are larger than 9m ⊙ , have χ > 0.8.…”

Section: Galactic Bhs In X-ray Binariesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Who Ordered That? On the Origin of LIGO’s Merging Binary Black Holes

Piran¹,

Hotekezaka²

2019

Jacob Bekenstein

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LIGO's detection of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers was an unexpected surprise that immediately raised the question -what is the origin of these black hole binaries? The "simplest" scenario is evolution of field massive stellar binaries. However, other possibilities involving capture have been proposed. We explore here one of the more interesting clues on this puzzle: the relatively modest spins of the resulting black holes that imply that the progenitor black holes were not spinning rapidly. More specifically we consider the implication of observed distribution of, χ eff , the mass weighted projected (along the orbital axis) spins on the field evolution scenario. In all cases χ eff is small and in two of the cases the best fit value is negative. Only in one event the spin is positive at 90% credible. These observations are puzzling within the field binary scenario in which positive higher spins (χ eff ≥ 0.5) are expected. At first sight one may expect that this rules out the field evolutionary scenario. Indeed we show that with typical parameters a significant fraction (≥ 25%) of the mergers should have high effective spin values. However, uncertainties in the outcome of the common envelope phase (the typical separation and whether the stars are rotating or not) and in the late stages of massive star evolution (the strength of the winds) make it impossible to rule out, at present, these scenarios. While observations of mergers with high effective spin will support this scenario, future observations of negative spin mergers would rule it out.

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Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets

Cited by 13 publications

References 153 publications

Observing black holes spin

Observing black holes spin

Difficulties of quantitative tests of the Kerr-hypothesis with X-ray observations of mass accreting black holes

Who Ordered That? On the Origin of LIGO’s Merging Binary Black Holes

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