The Spin of the Near-Extreme Kerr Black Hole GRS 1915+105

By J. E. McClintock, Rebecca Shafee, Ramesh Narayan, Ronald A. Remillard, S. Davis, Li-Xin Li. 2006

538 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Based on a spectral analysis of the X-ray continuum that employs a fully relativistic accretion disk model, we conclude that the compact primary of the binary X-ray source GRS 1915+105 is a rapidly rotating Kerr black hole. We find a lower limit on the dimensionless spin parameter of a* > 0.98. Our result is robust in the sense that it is independent of the details of the data analysis and insensitive to the uncertainties in the mass and distance of the black hole. Furthermore, our accretion disk model includes an advanced treatment of spectral hardening. Our data selection relies on a rigorous and quantitative definition of the thermal state of black hole binaries, which we used to screen all of the available RXTE and ASCA data for the thermal state of GRS 1915+105. In addition, we focus on those data for which the accretion disk luminosity is less than 30% of the Eddington luminosity. We argue that these low-luminosity data are most appropriate for the thin α-disk model that we employ. We assume that there is zero torque at the inner edge of the disk, as is likely when the disk is thin, although we show that the presence of a significant torque does not affect our results. Our model and the model of the relativistic jets observed for this source constrain the distance and black hole mass and could thus be tested by determining a VLBA parallax distance and improving the measurement of the mass function. Finally, we comment on the significance of our results for relativistic jet and core-collapse models and for the detection of gravitational waves.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f2b8dbd0a3cf167b26d09926d1adf5576fc55305

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Atmospheric Science

In Instrumentation

Citations in the corpus

Three-Dimensional Simulations of Magnetized Thin Accretion Disks around Black Holes: Stress in the Plunging Region (2008, methodology): “If true this would undermine recent efforts to estimate of the spin parameters of BHs using the NT73 model (Shafee et al. 2006; McClintock et al. 2006; Davis et al. 2006; Liu et al. 2008).”
The Masses and Spins of Neutron Stars and Stellar-Mass Black Holes (2014, methodology): “This spin value is broadly consistent with one measurement obtained using the disk continuum ([275]).”
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): “We find spin values ranging from a∗ ≈ 0.1 (Gou et al. 2010) to a∗ > 0.98 (McClintock et al. 2006); four other spin values are relatively high, a∗ ≈ 0.7–0.9 (Shafee et al. 2006; Liu et al. 2008, 2010; Gou et al. 2009).”
Observational evidence for a correlation between jet power and black hole spin (2011, methodology): “…continuum-fitting (CF) method1 (Zhang, Cui & Chen 1997; Gierliński, MaciołekNiedźwiecki & Ebisawa 2001; Shafee et al. 2006; Davis, Done & Blaes 2006; McClintock et al. 2006) – that have enabled us to make E-mail: rnarayan@cfa.harvard.edu (RN); jmcclintock@cfa.harvard.edu (JEM) 1 A second…”
Testing black hole candidates with electromagnetic radiation (2015, background): “Thin disks are present when the accretion luminosity is 5-30% of the Eddington limit (McClintock et al., 2006).”
Multi-resonance orbital model of high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations: possible high-precision determination of black hole and neutron star spin (2013, background): “…with the spin estimates based on the accretion disc spectral continuum fitting (McClintock et al. 2011; Done & Davis 2008; Done et al. 2007; McClintock et al. 2006; Middleton et al. 2006; Shafee et al. 2006) and profiled spectral lines (Laor 1991; Bao & Stuchlík 1992; Karas et al. 1992;…”
Orbital resonances in discs around braneworld Kerr black holes (2008, background): “Shaded regions indicate the like ly ranges for the mass (inferred from optical measurements o f radial curves [52]) and the dimensionless spin (inferred fr om the X-ray spectral data fitting [51]) of GRS 1915+105.”
Testing the Kerr Black Hole Hypothesis Using X-Ray Reflection Spectroscopy (2016, background): “Similar disks are thought to form when the source is in the thermal state with an accretion luminosity between a few percent and about 30% of its Eddington limit (McClintock et al. 2006; Penna et al. 2010; Steiner et al. 2010).”
BlackCAT: A catalogue of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray transients (2015, background): “…of BHTs are named BH candidates because they share similar X-ray characteristics in outburst to the confirmed ones, but they lack a final dynamical confirmation (see, e.g. McClintock et al. 2006 and Belloni et al. 2011 for reviews on the X-ray observational properties of the BH candidates).”
THE FIRST ACCURATE PARALLAX DISTANCE TO A BLACK HOLE (2009, methodology): “Finally, one of the methods currently employed to measure black hole spins, via fitting of the X-ray spectrum during the thermal-dominant state of the source during outburst (McClintock et al. 2006) requires accurate distances.”
THE CONSTANT INNER-DISK RADIUS OF LMC X-3: A BASIS FOR MEASURING BLACK HOLE SPIN (2010, methodology): “The thermal and principal component of our model is kerrbb2, a thin accretion disk model that includes all relativistic effects, self-irradiation of the disk (“returning radiation”), limb darkening, and the effects of spectral hardening (Li et al. 2005; McClintock et al. 2006).”
STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLE SPIN CONSTRAINTS FROM DISK REFLECTION AND CONTINUUM MODELING (2009, methodology): “…spectra from each source were fit with a model consisting of the “kerrbb” thermal disk continuum model (Li et al. 2005; this is the same model employed by Shafee et al. 2006 and McClintock et al. 2006) and the constant density ionized (CDID) disk reflection model (Ballantyne, Ross, & Fabian 2001).”
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).”