Estimating the Spin of Stellar-Mass Black Holes via Spectral Fitting of the X-ray Continuum

Details Estimating the Spin of Stellar-Mass Black Holes via Spectral Fitting of the X-ray Continuum Estimating the Spin of Stellar-Mass Black Holes via Spectral Fitting of the X-ray Continuum

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006head....9.0186s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #9, #1.86; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.343

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

An astrophysical black hole is defined by two quantities: its mass and how fast it is spinning. The masses of black holes in X-ray binaries have been determined through dynamical optical studies. However, currently there are no established methods for measuring spin. We present spin estimates of three black holes: GRO J1655-40, 4U 1543-47 and GRS 1915+105. We consider RXTE and ASCA spectra in which we focus on the accretion-disk emission component often referred to as the "thermal component". We fit this disk component to a general relativistic accretion disk model with careful treatment of the spectral hardening factor, which accounts for the deviation of the spectra from a perfect blackbody spectrum. We find moderate spins for GRO J1655-40 and 4U 1543-47. However, GRS 1915+105 has a near-maximal spin (a* > 0.98) according to our determination. This high spin is independent of the model used for the Comptonized "tail" component of emission and also of uncertainties in the mass and distance of the source.

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