Mass Measurements of Stellar and Intermediate-Mass Black Holes

Casares, J.; Jonker, P. G.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2227-7_12

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 177 publications

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“…This is above the expected maximum neutron star mass of about 3M ⊙ [80,81] and beyond the mass gap where there is currently a dearth of black holes observed in x-ray binaries [82][83][84]. The range of our inferred component masses overlaps with those for stellarmass black holes measured through x-ray observations but extends beyond the nearly 16M ⊙ maximum of that population [85][86][87].…”

Section: A Massessupporting

confidence: 53%

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Abbott¹,

Abbott²,

Abbott³

et al. 2016

Phys. Rev. X

1,234

1,383

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the first detections of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers. In this paper, we present full results from a search for binary black hole merger signals with total masses up to 100M ⊙ and detailed implications from our observations of these systems. Our search, based on general-relativistic * Full author list given at the end of the article. † Deceased.Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGERS IN THE FIRST …PHYS. REV. X 6, 041015 (2016) 041015-5 models of gravitational-wave signals from binary black hole systems, unambiguously identified two signals, GW150914 and GW151226, with a significance of greater than 5σ over the observing period. It also identified a third possible signal, LVT151012, with substantially lower significance and with an 87% probability of being of astrophysical origin. We provide detailed estimates of the parameters of the observed systems. Both GW150914 and GW151226 provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the two-body motion of a compact-object binary in the large velocity, highly nonlinear regime. We do not observe any deviations from general relativity, and we place improved empirical bounds on several highorder post-Newtonian coefficients. From our observations, we infer stellar-mass binary black hole merger rates lying in the range 9-240 Gpc −3 yr −1 . These observations are beginning to inform astrophysical predictions of binary black hole formation rates and indicate that future observing runs of the Advanced detector network will yield many more gravitational-wave detections.

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Section: A Massessupporting

confidence: 53%

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Abbott¹,

Abbott²,

Abbott³

et al. 2016

Phys. Rev. X

1,234

1,383

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“…The donor spectral type remains somewhat ambiguous, ranging between K0 and K3 [18][19][20] . Combined with uncertain corrections for accretion disc contamination, the present ranges on the inclination and compact object mass are 56-67 deg and MBH=8-12 M☉, respectively 21 . Assuming a jet bulk speed of β (relative to c), and an inclination angle i, the time delay τ between X--ray emission from close to the black hole and subsequent optical synchrotron emission from an elevation d along the jet is given by τ=d/βc × [1--βcos(i)].…”

Section: Power Spectramentioning

confidence: 95%

An elevation of 0.1 light-seconds for the optical jet base in an accreting Galactic black hole system

et al. 2017

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Relativistic plasma jets are observed in many accreting black holes. According to theory, coiled magnetic fields close to the black hole accelerate and collimate the plasma, leading to a jet being launched 1-3 . Isolating emission from this acceleration and collimation zone is key to measuring its size and understanding jet formation physics. But this is challenging because emission from the jet base cannot be easily disentangled from other accreting components. Here, we show that rapid optical flux variations from a Galactic black--hole binary are delayed with respect to X--rays radiated from close to the black hole by ~0.1 seconds, and that this delayed signal appears together with a brightening radio jet. The origin of these sub--second optical variations has hitherto been controversial 4-8 . Not only does our work strongly support a jet origin for the optical variations, it also sets a characteristic elevation of ≲10 3 Schwarzschild radii for the main inner optical emission zone above the black hole 9 , constraining both internal shock 10 and magnetohydrodynamic 11 models. Similarities with blazars 12,13 suggest that jet structure and launching physics could potentially be unified under mass--invariant models. Two of the best--studied jetted black hole binaries show very similar optical lags 8,14,15 , so this size scale may be a defining feature of such systems. In June 2015, the Galactic X--ray binary V404 Cygni underwent the brightest outburst of an X-ray binary so far this century. We coordinated simultaneous optical observations from the William Herschel Telescope with X--ray observations from the NuSTAR space observatory on the morning of June 25. These were high frame--rate optical observations taken by the ULTRACAM instrument, sampling timescales down to 35.94 milliseconds (ms). Both optical and X--ray light curves show variability on a broad range of timescales characteristic of this source 15,16 (Fig. 1). The AMI telescope provided contiguous radio coverage throughout this period. Details of the observations may be found in Methods. These coordinated observations occurred on June 25, the day preceding the peak of the 2015 outburst. When the optical observations began, the X--ray intensity was two orders of magnitude below peak, and the spectrum was dominated by low--energy X--rays (i.e., it was in a state characterised as being relatively 'soft'). Steady, compact jet activity is not expected in such a state, and consistent with this, the radio spectral index is negative, as is typical of emission from discrete optically--thin ejecta. NuSTAR observations were interrupted about 2000 seconds later due to a period of Earth occultation, which separates the two halves (hereafter, 'epochs') of the sequence under consideration. At some point during this occultation, the source underwent a dramatic and very rapid change in its X--ray spectral state. When NuSTAR emerged from Earth occultation, the spectrum was instead found to have pivoted towards high energies, with a larger fraction of X--ray counts above 1...

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“…The black hole mass is in the range M BH = 8-12 M ¤ , the error budget being dominated by the uncertainty in the orbital inclination 43 . We use a black hole mass of M BH = 10 M ¤ and a mass ratio of q= M BH /M 2 =0.067 in every calculation presented in this paper 43 , where M 2 corresponds to the donor star mass in M ¤ . This results in an orbital separation of 2.2×10 7 km.…”

Section: Fundamental Parameters Of V404 Cygmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulation of black-hole accretion by a disk wind during a violent outburst of V404 Cygni

Muñoz-Darias

Casares

Sánchez

et al. 2016

Nature

Self Cite

128

164

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Accretion of matter onto black holes is universally associated with strong radiative feedback 1 and powerful outflows 2 . In particular, black hole transients 3 show outflows whose properties 4 are strongly coupled to those of the accretion flow. This includes X-ray winds of ionized material, expelled from the accretion disc encircling the black hole, and collimated radio jets 5,6 . Very recently, a distinct optical variability pattern has been reported in the transient black hole transient V404 Cyg, and interpreted as disrupted mass flow into the inner regions of its large accretion disc 7 . Here, we report on the discovery of a sustained outer accretion disc wind in V404 Cyg, which is unlike any seen previously. We find that the outflowing wind is neutral, has a large covering factor, expands at 1% of the speed of light and triggers a nebular phase once accretion sharply drops and the ejecta become optically thin. The large expelled mass (> l0 -8 M ¤ ) indicates that the outburst was prematurely ended when a sizeable fraction of the outer disc was depleted by the wind, detaching the inner regions from the rest of the disc. The luminous, but brief, accretion phases shown by transients with large accretion discs 2 imply that this outflow is most likely a new fundamental ingredient regulating mass accretion onto black holes.The X-ray binary V404 Cyg (GS 2023+338) is a confirmed stellar-mass BH 8 with a precisely determined distance of 2.4 kpc 9 . Following 25 years of quiescence, the Swift mission detected renewed activity on Jun 15, 2015 10 , initiating a 2-week period of intensely violently variable emission across all wavelengths 11,12 . Our high signal-to-noise GTC optical spectra covering the entire X-ray/radio active phase (~15 days) show that, contemporaneously with radio jet emission, continuous ejections of neutral material at ~0.01c are present from low-level accretion phases (<1% of the Eddington luminosity; L EDD ) to the Xray peak (Methods; Fig. 1, ED Fig. 1). These are observed in hydrogen (Balmer) and helium (He I) emission lines as deep P-Cyg profiles throughout the outburst 13 , and extremely broad wings once the Xray and radio fluxes decay. P-Cyg profiles result from resonant scattering in an expanding outflow with a spherical geometry or at least sustaining a large solid angle 14, 15 (Methods). Among a dozen transitions showing this feature, the deepest are seen in the He I-5876 emission line, which is used as a reference for this study (see ED Fig. 2.).The strongest P-Cyg profiles are witnessed during days 1 to 6 (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 for the evolution of the profiles during day 2; Methods), when the X-ray luminosity is typically 10 3 times fainter than the ~L EDD flares displayed later in the outburst 7,11 (ED Fig.1). Blue-shifted absorptions are as deep as 30% below the continuum level and we measure terminal velocities in the range V T =1,500 -3,000 km s -1 (Fig. 1, Fig 2, ED Fig 2; ED Fig. 3). Symmetric red-shifted (i.e. positive velocity) outflow emission, completely detached from the accre...

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Mass Measurements of Stellar and Intermediate-Mass Black Holes

Cited by 6 publications

References 177 publications

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

An elevation of 0.1 light-seconds for the optical jet base in an accreting Galactic black hole system

Regulation of black-hole accretion by a disk wind during a violent outburst of V404 Cygni

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