The mass of the black hole in V404 Cygni

1994/11/01 by T. Shahbaz, F. A. Ringwald, J. C. Bunn +3 · 5 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Mechanics and Biomechanics Studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/271.1.l10

openalex publication_date 1994/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

We have obtained a K-band infrared light curve of the low-mass X -ray binary transient V404 Cygni. We model it as the ellipsoidal variation of a secondary star distorted in the gravitational field of a black hole, and thus deduce the inclination of the binary. Combining this with previously published spectroscopic data, we determine the mass of the black hole to be approximately 12 M⊙

Cited by

• Dynamical Evidence for a Black Hole in the Microquasar XTE J1550−564
• Astrophysical evidence for the existence of black holes
• Infrared contamination in Galactic X-ray novae
• The Spectrum of the Black Hole X‐Ray Nova V404 Cygni in Quiescence as Measured byXMM‐Newton
• Cygnus (constellation) [wikipedia]