Estimating the Spin of Stellar-Mass Black Holes by Spectral Fitting of the X-Ray Continuum

By Rebecca Shafee, J. E. McClintock, Ramesh Narayan, S. Davis, Li-Xin Li, Ronald A. Remillard. 2005

307 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We fit X-ray spectral data in the thermal-dominant, or high-soft, state of two dynamically confirmed black holes, GRO J1655-40 and 4U 1543-47, and estimate the dimensionless spin parameters a* ≡ a/M of the two holes. For GRO J1655-40, using a spectral hardening factor computed for a non-LTE relativistic accretion disk, we estimate a* ~ 0.75 and a* ~ 0.65-0.75, respectively, from ASCA and RXTE data. For 4U 1543-47, we estimate a* ~ 0.75-0.85 from RXTE data. Thus, neither black hole has a spin approaching the theoretical maximum a* = 1.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6750c4d1fa2e3bf857331969ead1326c49a2de7d

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Ramesh Narayan
2. J. E. McClintock
3. A. Tchekhovskoy
4. J. McKinney
5. J. Steiner
6. Ronald A. Remillard
7. Cosimo Bambi
8. A. C. Fabian

In Geophysics

1. J. E. McClintock
2. Ramesh Narayan
3. Ronald A. Remillard
4. Cosimo Bambi
5. S. Davis
6. J. Steiner
7. C. Done
8. T. Belloni

Citations in the corpus

• No evidence for black hole spin powering of jets in X-ray binaries (2010, methodology): “More recent disc-modelling results have been presented by, amongst others, Shafee et al. (2006), McClintock et al. (2006), Davis, Done & Blaes (2006), Middleton et al. (2006), Nowak et al. (2008), Steiner et al. (2009), Gou et al. (2010).”
• Simulations of magnetized discs around black holes: Effects of black hole spin, disc thickness and magnetic field geometry (2010, methodology): “…years, BH spin parameters have been measured in several BH X-ray binaries by fitting their X-ray continuum spectra in the thermal (or high-soft) spectral state (Zhang, Cui & Chen 1997; Shafee et al. 2006; McClintock et al. 2006; Davis, Done & Blaes 2006; Liu et al. 2008; Gou et al. 2009, 2010).”
• The spin of the black hole microquasar XTE J1550−564 via the continuum-fitting and Fe-line methods (2010, methodology): “First-class ‘gold’ spectra are selected from just the strongly discdominated TD-state observations (the most reliable for measuring spin via the CF method; e.g. Shafee et al. 2006).”
• THE CONSTANT INNER-DISK RADIUS OF LMC X-3: A BASIS FOR MEASURING BLACK HOLE SPIN (2010, methodology): “In recent years, both methods have been used to estimate the spins of stellar BHs (e.g., Shafee et al. 2006; McClintock et al. 2006; Davis et al. 2006; Reis et al. 2008; Miller et al. 2009; Blum et al. 2009).”
• The Spin of the Near-Extreme Kerr Black Hole GRS 1915+105 (2006, methodology): “Using this modern methodology, spins have now been estimated for several stellar-mass BHs, most notably: GRO J1655–40 and 4U 1543–47 (Shafee et al. 2006, hereafter S06), GRS1915 (Middleton et al. 2006), and LMC X-3 (Davis et al. 2006).”
• Measuring the spins of accreting black holes (2011, background): “Thus, it appears that the spin of M33 X-7 must be chiefly natal—i.e. the event horizon trapped much of the angular momentum of the collapsing stellar core—a conclusion that has been reached for two other stellar-mass black holes (McClintock et al 2006, Shafee et al 2006).”
• X-Ray Properties of Black-Hole Binaries (2006, methodology): “Using the new disk models mentioned above, Shafee et al. (2006) fitted ASCA and RXTE spectral data on the BHB GRO J1655–40 and found a∗ ∼ 0.65−0.75.”
• THE RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY OF ACCRETION FLOWS IN INDIVIDUAL ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, methodology): “Detailed spectral models similar to the ones used here (Davis & Hubeny 2006) not only reproduce the spectrum, but also the spectral evolution as Ṁ varies (e.g Davis et al. 2006; Shafee et al. 2006).”
• Simulations of ultrarelativistic magnetodynamic jets from gamma‐ray burst engines (2008, background): “Various studies of BH accretion systems suggest that rapidly spinning BHs (a 0.9) are quite common (Gammie, Shapiro & McKinney 2004; Shafee et al. 2006; McClintock et al. 2006).”
• STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLE SPIN CONSTRAINTS FROM DISK REFLECTION AND CONTINUUM MODELING (2009, methodology): “The development of new disk models, supported by numerical disk simulations, has enabled spin constraints in a few system based on the thermal continuum emission from the disk (Shafee et al. 2006, McClintock et al. 2006).”
• Testing black hole candidates with electromagnetic radiation (2015, methodology): “If we choose the mass estimate in Shafee et al. (2006), the measurements of the continuum-fitting method and the QPOs may be consistent for a non-vanishing 3.”