Black Hole Spin Evolution

By Charles F. Gammie, Stuart L. Shapiro, J. McKinney. 2003

270 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We consider a subset of the physical processes that determine the spin j ≡ a/M of astrophysical black holes. These include (1) Initial conditions. Recent models suggest that the collapse of a supermassive star is likely to produce a black hole with j ~ 0.7. (2) Major mergers. The outcome of a nearly equal mass black hole-black hole merger is not yet known, but we review the current best guesses and analytic bounds. (3) Minor mergers. We recover the result of Blandford & Hughes that accretion of small companions with isotropically distributed orbital angular momenta results in spin-down, with j ~ M-7/3. (4) Accretion. We present new results from fully relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) accretion simulations. These show that, at least for one sequence of flow models, spin equilibrium (dj/dt = 0) is reached for j ~ 0.9, far less than the canonical value 0.998 of Thorne that was derived in the absence of MHD effects. This equilibrium value may be inapplicable to some accretion flows, particularly thin disks. Nevertheless, it opens the possibility that black holes that have grown primarily through accretion are not maximally rotating.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8712840007736317f206adc5d8c2ad23c90c624c

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

The shape of the black hole photon ring: A precise test of strong-field general relativity (2020, unknown): “Since accretion disks are expected to spin up black holes toward their maximal values [37,38], we adopt a canonical value a=M ¼ 94% .”
Three-dimensional general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamical simulation of super-Eddington accretion, using a new code HARMRAD with M1 closure (2013, background): “The BH is in “spin equilibrium” for s = 0 (Gammie et al. 2004).”
Doing Science with eLISA: Astrophysics and Cosmology in the Millihertz Regime (2012, background): “93 (Gammie et al., 2004), and changes in the accretion geometry produce a similar effect (Popham and Gammie, 1998).”
Total and Jet Blandford-Znajek Power in the Presence of an Accretion Disk (2005, background): “Black hole X-ray binaries might havea/M ∼ 0.5–0.95 (Gammie et al. 2004), while some may havea/M 0.5 (Gierliński & Done 2004).”
THE RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY OF ACCRETION FLOWS IN INDIVIDUAL ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, background): “If magnetohydrodynamic torques are present, the spin may be limited to lower values (a∗ ∼ 0.9, Gammie et al. 2004, and references therein).”
SELF-CONSISTENT MODELS OF THE AGN AND BLACK HOLE POPULATIONS: DUTY CYCLES, ACCRETION RATES, AND THE MEAN RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY (2007, background): “…interactions or variations of radiative efficiency caused by the impact of mergers on the black hole spin distribution (e.g., Hughes & Blandford 2003; Volonteri et al. 2003; Gammie et al. 2004; Islam et al. 2004; Yoo & Miralda-Escudé 2004; Merritt & Milosavljević 2005; Volonteri et al. 2006).”
Stability of relativistic jets from rotating, accreting black holes via fully three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations (2008, methodology): “We choose all models to havea/M = 0.92 (hole angular frequency,ΩH = a/(2Mr+) ≈ 0.33M−1, with horizon radius,r+) such that the BH is in spin equilibrium for our disc thickness (Gammie et al. 2004).”
Large Merger Recoils and Spin Flips from Generic Black Hole Binaries (2007, background): “A number of arguments (Shapiro 2005; Gammie et al. 2004) suggest that spins of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are close to maximal, a/m >∼ 0.8, and perhaps as great as 0.99 (Reynolds et al. 2005).”
Primordial black holes confront LIGO/Virgo data: current situation (2020, background): “Angular momentum accretion in this case is more complex, although numerical simulations suggest that the spin evolution time scale does not change significantly [48].”
The evolution of primordial black holes and their final observable spins (2020, background): “J C A P 0 4 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 0 5 2 simulations of relatively thick disks [64].”
STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLE SPIN CONSTRAINTS FROM DISK REFLECTION AND CONTINUUM MODELING (2009, background): “However, as noted by Heger & Woosley (2002) and Gammie et al. (2004), the mass, angular momentum, metallicity, and magnetic field structure in progenitor stars arell important in determining its final spin, and considerable thoretical uncertainties remain in modeling this problem.”
Magnetically Driven Accretion Flows in the Kerr Metric. IV. Dynamical Properties of the Inner Disk (2004, background): “As mentioned briefly in Paper I and at greater length in Gammie et al. (2004), the accreted angular momentum per unit rest-mass decreases so much with increasing a/M that the black hole can spin down (in the sense of decreasing a/M) even as M increases.”
Massive Black Hole Binary Evolution (2004, background): “gt;∼ 0.3 always result in spin-up. The oft-repeated statement that “mergers spin down black holes” reﬂects a preconception that SBHs are likely to be formed in a state of near-maximal rotation (e.g., [14, 62]).4 Successive mergers from random directions with ﬁxed q (i.e. secondary mass grows proport”
Three-Dimensional Simulations of Magnetized Thin Accretion Disks around Black Holes: Stress in the Plunging Region (2008, background): “Future studies should also investigate the dependence of these results onh/r, magnetic field geometry, black hole spin (e.g. Gammie et al. 2004), cooling, resistivity and viscosity, and mass distribution.”
The Influence of Magnetic Field Geometry on the Evolution of Black Hole Accretion Flows: Similar Disks, Drastically Different Jets (2007, background): “As has been remarked in earlier papers Krolik et al. (2005), Gammie et al. (2004), when a/M = 0.9, the magnitude of the Maxwell stress (i.e., the electromagnetic angular momentum flux) is smaller than the angular momentum flux associated directly with matter (Ṁuφ) in the inner disk.”