THE FIRST ACCURATE PARALLAX DISTANCE TO A BLACK HOLE

By J. Miller-Jones, Peter G. Jonker, V. Dhawan, Walter Brisken, M. Rupen, G. Nelemans, E. Gallo. 2009

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Using astrometric VLBI observations, we have determined the parallax of the black hole X-ray binary V404 Cyg to be 0.418 ± 0.024 mas, corresponding to a distance of 2.39 ± 0.14 kpc, significantly lower than the previously accepted value. This model-independent estimate is the most accurate distance to a Galactic stellar-mass black hole measured to date. With this new distance, we confirm that the source was not super-Eddington during its 1989 outburst. The fitted distance and proper motion imply that the black hole in this system likely formed in a supernova, with the peculiar velocity being consistent with a recoil (Blaauw) kick. The size of the quiescent jets inferred to exist in this system is <1.4 AU at 22 GHz. Astrometric observations of a larger sample of such systems would provide useful insights into the formation and properties of accreting stellar-mass black holes.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ba6cc5692976379ee482ad0738a691796912a5f8

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Citations in the corpus

A PARALLAX DISTANCE TO THE MICROQUASAR GRS 1915+105 AND A REVISED ESTIMATE OF ITS BLACK HOLE MASS (2014, background): “Unlike the black hole binaries V404 Cyg (Miller-Jones et al. 2009) and Cyg X-1 (Reid et al. 2011), for which measurements of trigonometric parallax were relatively straightforward, GRS 1915+105 is a difficult target for several reasons.”
The 'universal' radio/X-ray flux correlation : the case study of the black hole GX 339-4 (2012, background): “With the distances of GX 339−4 (Zdziarski et al. 2004) and V404 Cyg (updated in Miller-Jones et al. 2009), these two sources now share the same track in the radio/X-ray diagram.”
The Masses and Spins of Neutron Stars and Stellar-Mass Black Holes (2014, background): “This situation has recently improved drastically: VLBA astrometry has made it possible to determine parallax distances for some black holes (e.g. V404 Cyg and Cyg X-1; [290, 291]), reducing errors to a very small fraction of the distance value.”
COMPACT BINARY MERGER RATES: COMPARISON WITH LIGO/VIRGO UPPER LIMITS (2015, methodology): “Miller-Jones et al. (2009a) presented parallax determination, that led to a revised distance to the source (2.39 ± 0.14 kpc).”
Radiatively efficient accreting black holes in the hard state: the case study of H1743-322 (2011, methodology): “convert fluxes into luminosity, we used a distance of 8 kpc for GX 339-4 (Zdziarski et al. 2004) and the new distance of 2.39 kpc for V404 Cyg, that was derived using accurate astrometric VLBI observations (Miller-Jones et al. 2009).”
WATCHDOG: A COMPREHENSIVE ALL-SKY DATABASE OF GALACTIC BLACK HOLE X-RAY BINARIES (2015, methodology): “…[37] Casares et al. (2009), [38] Casares et al. (2004), [39] Barret et al. (1996a), [40] Harlaftis et al. (1996), [41] Casares et al. (1995a), [42] Miller-Jones et al. (2009), [43] Casares & Charles (1994), [44] Charles & Coe (2006), [45] Hynes et al. (2003), [46] Shaposhnikov & Titarchuk(2009),…”
Microarcsecond Radio Astrometry (2013, background): “The first trigonometric parallax for a black hole candidate was for the X-ray binary V404 Cyg (Miller-Jones et al. 2009), indicating a distance of 2.39 ± 0.14 kpc.”