1997/10/31 by Wei Cui, S. N. Zhang, Wan Chen · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Binary black hole #Black hole (networking) #Context (archaeology) #Intermediate-mass black hole #Precession #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Spin-flip #Spinning #Stellar black hole #Superluminal motion #astro-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/311092
new title, minor revisions; change title to conform to ApJL rules; replaced with the updated version to avoid confusion
openalex publication_date 1998/01/01 · arxiv created 1998/07/17 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In the context of black hole spin in X-ray binaries, we propose that certain types of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) observed in the light curves of black hole binaries (BHBs) are produced by X-ray modulation at the precession frequency of accretion disks, because of relativistic dragging of inertial frames around spinning black holes. These QPOs tend to be relatively stable in their centroid frequencies. They have been observed in the frequency range of a few hertz to a few hundred hertz for several black holes with dynamically determined masses. By comparing the computed disk precession frequency with that of the observed QPO, we can derive the black hole spin, given its mass. When applying this model to GRO J1655-40, GRS 1915+105, Cyg X-1, and GS 1124-68, we found that the black holes in GRO J1655-40 and GRS 1915+105, the only known BHBs that occasionally produce superluminal radio jets, spin at a rate close to the maximum limit, while Cyg X-1 and GS 1124-68, typical (persistent and transient) BHBs, contain only moderately rotating ones. Extending the model to the general population of black hole candidates, the fact that only low-frequency QPOs have been detected is consistent with the presence of only slowly spinning black holes in these systems. Our results are in good agreement with those derived from spectral data, thus strongly supporting the classification scheme that we proposed previously for BHBs.