Calibrating the Correlation Between Black Hole Mass and X-Ray Variability Amplitude: X-Ray Only Black Hole Mass Estimates for Active Galactic Nuclei and Ultra-Luminous X-Ray Sources

Zhou, Xin-Lin; Zhang, Shuang‐Nan; Wang, Ding-Xiong; Zhu, Ling

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/710/1/16

Cited by 90 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Previous studies have pointed out that the high-frequency PSD does not show a clear scaling with the luminosity/mass-accretion rate both in BHXRBs (Gierliński et al 2008) and AGN (O'Neil et al 2005;Zhou et al 2010;Ponti et al 2012). We observe that the high-frequency fractional rms of GX 339-4 is constant in the hard and very hard band (dominated by the hard X-ray Comptonization continuum) at any luminosity probed.…”

Section: The Scaling Of the High-frequency Psd With Luminosity In Bhxcontrasting

confidence: 43%

“…In analogy with BHXRBs, also in AGN the highfrequency PSD (above the high-frequency break) does not show any clear dependence on the luminosity/mass-accretion rate (e.g. O'Neil et al 2005;Zhou et al 2010;Ponti et al 2012). In this paper we aim at investigating the evolution of the PSD as a function of luminosity/mass-accretion rate, extending the analysis down to the soft X-ray energy band.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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The evolution of the disc variability along the hard state of the black hole transient GX 339-4

Marco¹,

Ponti²,

Muñoz-Darias³

et al. 2015

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

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We report on the analysis of hard-state power spectral density function (PSD) of GX 339-4 down to the soft X-ray band, where the disc significantly contributes to the total emission. At any luminosity probed, the disc in the hard state is intrinsically more variable than in the soft state. However, the fast decrease of disc variability as a function of luminosity, combined with the increase of disc intensity, causes a net drop of fractional variability at high luminosities and low energies, which reminds the well-known behaviour of disc-dominated energy bands in the soft state. The peak-frequency of the high-frequency Lorentzian (likely corresponding to the high-frequency break seen in active galactic nuclei, AGN) scales with luminosity, but we do not find evidence for a linear scaling. In addition, we observe that this characteristic frequency is energy-dependent. We find that the normalization of the PSD at the peak of the high-frequency Lorentzian decreases with luminosity at all energies, though in the soft band this trend is steeper. Together with the frequency shift, this yields quasi-constant high frequency (5-20 Hz) fractional rms at high energies, with less than 10 percent scatter. This reinforces previous claims suggesting that the high frequency PSD solely scales with BH mass. On the other hand, this constancy breaks down in the soft band (where the scatter increases to ∼ 30 percent). This is a consequence of the additional contribution from the disc component, and resembles the behaviour of optical variability in AGN.

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Section: The Scaling Of the High-frequency Psd With Luminosity In Bhxcontrasting

confidence: 43%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The evolution of the disc variability along the hard state of the black hole transient GX 339-4

Marco¹,

Ponti²,

Muñoz-Darias³

et al. 2015

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

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“…In fact the low bulge velocity dispersion (σ * < 30 km s −1 ; Filippenko & Ho 2003) deviates from the extrapolation of the M-σ relation when this estimate of the M BH is adopted (but see Greene & Ho 2006). The final Rev sample consists of 32 AGN (11 more AGN than in the Zhou et al 2010, sample), 6 of which are either absorbed or radio loud objects, hence they are not present in CAIXAvar.…”

Section: Reverberation Sample (Rev)mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Miniutti et al (2009) confirmed the variability vs. M BH trend extending the variability estimation to smaller M BH AGN. Finally, Zhou et al (2010) tried to calibrate accurately, and estimate the intrinsic scatter of the σ 2 rms vs. M BH relation, using high quality XMM-Newton light curves of AGN with M BH measured through the "reverberation mapping" technique. They found that the intrinsic scatter of this relation is even smaller than the one implied by the M BH uncertainties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CAIXA: a catalogue of AGN in theXMM-Newtonarchive

Ponti

Papadakis

Bianchi

et al. 2012

A&A

249

353

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Context. We report on the results of the first XMM-Newton systematic "excess variance" study of all the radio quiet, X-ray un-obscured AGN. The entire sample consist of 161 sources observed by XMM-Newton for more than 10 ks in pointed observations, which is the largest sample used so far to study AGN X-ray variability on time scales less than a day. Aims. Recently it has been suggested that the same engine might be at work in the core of every black hole (BH) accreting object. In this hypothesis, the same variability should be observed in all AGN, once rescaled by the M BH (M BH ) and accretion rate (ṁ). Methods. We systematically compute the excess variance for all AGN, on different time-scales (10, 20, 40 and 80 ks) and in different energy bands (0.3-0.7, 0.7-2 and 2-10 keV). Results. We observe a highly significant and tight (∼0.7 dex) correlation between σ 2 rms and M BH . The subsample of reverberation mapped AGN shows an even smaller scatter (only a factor of 2-3) comparable to the one induced by the M BH uncertainties. This implies that X-ray variability can be used as an accurate tool to measure M BH and this method is more accurate than the ones based on single epoch optical spectra. This allows us to measure M BH for 65 AGN and estimate lower limits for the remaining 96 AGN. On the other hand, the σ 2 rms vs. accretion rate dependence is weaker than expected based on the PSD break frequency scaling. This strongly suggests that both the PSD high frequency break and the normalisation depend on accretion rate in such a way that they almost completely counterbalance each other (PSD amp ∝ṁ −0.8 ). A highly significant correlation between σ 2 rms and 2-10 keV spectral index is observed. The highly significant correlations between σ 2 rms and both the L Bol and the FWHM Hβ are consistent with being just by-products of the σ 2 rms vs. M BH relation. The soft and medium σ 2 rms is very well correlated with the hard σ 2 rms , with no deviations from a linear one to one correlation. This suggests that the additional soft components (i.e. soft excess, warm absorber) add a minor contribution to the total variability. Once the variability is rescaled for M BH andṁ, no significant difference between narrow-line and broad-line Seyfert 1 is observed. Conclusions. The results are in agreement with a picture where, to first approximation, all local AGN have the same variability properties once rescaled for M BH andṁ.

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“…M82 X-1's previous mass estimates of a few hundred solar masses combined with the Type-C identification 2,4,9 of its mHz X-ray quasi-periodic oscillations suggest that 3:2 ratio, twin-peak, high-frequency oscillations analogous to those seen in stellar-mass black holes, if present, should be detectable in the frequency range of a few Hz 16 . We accordingly searched Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer's (RXTE's) proportional counter array archival data to look for 3:2 oscillation pairs in the frequency range of [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Hz which corresponds to a black hole mass range of 50-2000 M ⊙ .…”

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confidence: 99%

A 400-solar-mass black hole in the galaxy M82

Pasham

Strohmayer

Mushotzky

2014

Nature

194

197

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The brightest X-ray source in M82 has been thought to be an intermediatemass black hole (10 2−4 solar masses, M ⊙ ) because of its extremely high luminosity and variability characteristics 1−6 , although some models suggest that its mass may be only ∼ 20 M ⊙ 3,7 . The previous mass estimates are based on scaling relations which use low-frequency characteristic timescales which have large intrinsic uncertainties 8,9 . In stellar-mass black holes we know that the high frequency quasi-periodic oscillations that occur in a 3:2 ratio (100-450 Hz) are stable and scale inversely with black hole mass with a reasonably small dispersion 10−15 . The discovery of such stable oscillations thus potentially offers an alternative and less ambiguous mass determination for intermediate-mass black holes, but has hitherto not been realized. Here, we report stable, twin-peak (3:2 frequency ratio) X-ray quasi-periodic oscillations from M82 X-1 at the frequencies of 3.32±0.06Hz and 5.07±0.06 Hz. Assuming that we can scale the stellar-mass relationship, we estimate its black hole mass to be 428±105 M ⊙ . In addition, we can estimate the mass using the relativistic precession model, from which we get a value ofOscillations arising from general relativistic effects should scale inversely with the black hole mass if they arise from orbital motion near the innermost stable circular orbit in the We detected two power spectral peaks at 3.32±0.06 Hz (coherence, Q = centroid frequency (ν)/width(∆ν) > 27) and 5.07±0.06 Hz (Q > 40) consistent with a 3:2 frequency ratio ( Fig. 1a, b). The combined statistical significance of the detection is greater than 4.7σ (see Methods for details).The proportional counter array's field of view (1 • ×1 • ) of M82 includes a number of accreting X-ray sources in addition to M82 X-1 18 . The remarkable stability of the two quasiperiodic oscillations on timescales of a few years (Movies 1 & 2), their 3:2 frequency ratio and their high oscillation luminosities strongly suggest they are not low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations from a contaminating stellar-mass black hole (see Methods for details). Also a pulsar origin is very unlikely for several reasons. First, a pulsar signal would be much more coherent than that of the observed quasi-periodic oscillations, which clearly have a finite width. Second, based on the observed high quasi-periodic oscillation luminosities it is extremely implausible that they originate from a pulsar (see Methods for details). Finally, it would be highly coincidental to have two pulsars in the same field of view with spins in the 3:2 ratio. Also, based on the average power spectra of the background sky and a sample of accreting super-massive black holes monitored by the proportional counter array in the same epoch as M82, we rule out an instrumental origin for these oscillations 3 & 4). This leaves M82 X-1, persistently the brightest source in the field of view, as the most likely source associated with the 3:2 ratio quasi-periodic oscillation pair.We estimated M82 X-1's black hole ...

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Calibrating the Correlation Between Black Hole Mass and X-Ray Variability Amplitude: X-Ray Only Black Hole Mass Estimates for Active Galactic Nuclei and Ultra-Luminous X-Ray Sources

Cited by 90 publications

References 58 publications

The evolution of the disc variability along the hard state of the black hole transient GX 339-4

The evolution of the disc variability along the hard state of the black hole transient GX 339-4

CAIXA: a catalogue of AGN in theXMM-Newtonarchive

A 400-solar-mass black hole in the galaxy M82

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