The Mass of the Black Hole in Cygnus X-1

Details The Mass of the Black Hole in Cygnus X-1 The Mass of the Black Hole in Cygnus X-1

2011-06-18

arxiv.org/abs/1106.3689v2

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Paper II of three papers on Cygnus X-1; 27 pages including 5 figures and 3 tables, ApJ in press

Scientific paper

Cygnus X-1 is a binary star system that is comprised of a black hole and a massive giant companion star in a tight orbit. Building on our accurate distance measurement reported in the preceding paper, we first determine the radius of the companion star, thereby constraining the scale of the binary system. To obtain a full dynamical model of the binary, we use an extensive collection of optical photometric and spectroscopic data taken from the literature. By using all of the available observational constraints, we show that the orbit is slightly eccentric (both the radial velocity and photometric data independently confirm this result) and that the companion star rotates roughly 1.4 times its pseudosynchronous value. We find a black hole mass of M =14.8\pm1.0 M_{\sun}, a companion mass of M_{opt}=19.2\pm1.9 M_{\sun}, and the angle of inclination of the orbital plane to our line of sight of i=27.1\pm0.8 deg.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

The Mass of the Black Hole in Cygnus X-1 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The Mass of the Black Hole in Cygnus X-1, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Mass of the Black Hole in Cygnus X-1 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-723006