Big Game Hunting in the Andromeda Galaxy: identifiying and weighing black holes in low mass X-ray Binaries

Details Big Game Hunting in the Andromeda Galaxy: identifiying and weighing black holes in low mass X-ray Binaries Big Game Hunting in the Andromeda Galaxy: identifiying and weighing black holes in low mass X-ray Binaries

Jul 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004rmxac..20...71b&link_type=abstract

Compact Binaries in the Galaxy and Beyond, Proceedings of the conference held 17-22 November, 2003 in La Paz, Baja California Su

Physics

Black Hole Physics, Galaxies: Individual (M31), X-Rays: Binaries

Scientific paper

We have devised a new technique for identifying stellar mass black holes in low mass X-ray binaries, and have applied it to XMM-Newton observations of two X-ray sources in M31. In particular we search for low accretion rate power density spectra; these are very similar for all LMXB, whether the primary is a black hole or a neutron star. Galactic neutron star LMXB exhibit these distinctive PDS at very low luminosities ( ˜ 1036 erg s-1) while black hole LMXB can exhibit them at luminosities > 1038 erg s-1! Following the work of van der Klis (1994), we assume a maximum accretion rate (as a fraction of the Eddington limit) for low accretion rate PDS that is constant for all LMXB, and obtain an empirical value of ˜ 10% Eddington. We have so far discovered two candidate black hole binaries in M31, exhibiting low accretion rate PDS at up to 3×1038 and 5×1037 erg s-1. If we assume that they are at <10% Eddington, they have minimum masses of 20 and 4 M&sun; respectively. Furthermore, any LMXB exhibiting a low accretion rate power density spectrum at a luminosity > 5×1037 erg s-1 is likely to have a black hole primary.

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