Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...211.8304w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #83.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.874
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
While most astrophysical objects require many parameters in order to be fully described, black holes are unique in that only three parameters are required: mass, spin, and charge. Of these, mass and spin are enough to describe the black hole's gravitational field and event horizon location. Therefore, theory and observation may jointly pursue one or two quantities to uncover the progenitor star's history. Constraints on black hole mass exist for high mass X-ray binaries, such as Cygnus X-1, which is thought to consist of a 40 ± 10 solar mass O9.7Iab star and a 13.5-29 solar mass black hole (Ziolkowski 2005). While the constraints on the mass of the compact object are tight enough to declare that it is a black hole, they are sufficiently loose as to prohibit precise modeling of the progenitor star's mass. We have built an optical polarimeter for the Hale 5-m telescope at Mt. Palomar to provide an independent method for determining black hole mass. Degree of polarization will vary for an edge-on system, while position angle of net polarization will vary for a face-on system. Therefore, by monitoring the linear polarimetric variability of the binary, inclination can be estimated. Coupled with the known mass function of the binary from radial velocity work (Gies et al. 2003), inclination estimates constrain the mass of the black hole. Our polarimeter, POLISH (POLarimeter for Inclination Studies of High mass x-ray binaries), has achieved linear polarimetric precision of less than 10 parts per million on bright, unpolarized standard stars. We will also present results for polarized standard stars and Cygnus X-1 itself. This instrument has been funded by an endowment from the Moore Foundation.
Kulkarni Sanjeev R.
Matthews Keith
Wiktorowicz Sloane
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