Related papers: Stellar-mass Black Hole Spin Constraints from Disk…

Supermassive black hole binaries are likely to accrete interstellar gas through a circumbinary disk. Shortly before merger, the inner portions of this circumbinary disk are subject to general relativistic effects. To study this regime, we…

In prior work, {\it Chandra} and Gemini-North observations of the eclipsing X-ray binary M33 X-7 have yielded measurements of the mass of its black hole primary and the system's orbital inclination angle of unprecedented accuracy. Likewise,…

Black hole binaries exhibit a wide range of variability phenomena, from large-scale state changes to broadband noise and quasi-periodic oscillations, but the physical nature of much of this variability is poorly understood. We examine the…

We show that the 5-GHz radio flux of transient ballistic jets in black hole binaries correlates with the dimensionless black hole spin parameter a* estimated via the continuum-fitting method. The data suggest that jet power scales either as…

We present an analysis of the observed broad iron line feature and putative warm absorber in the long 2001 XMM-Newton observation of the Seyfert-1.2 galaxy MCG-6-30-15. The new "kerrdisk" model we have designed for simulating line emission…

New long-term Very Long Baseline Array observations of the well-known jet in the M87 radio galaxy at 43 GHz show that the jet experiences a sideways shift with an approximately 8-10 yr quasi-periodicity. Such jet wobbling can be indicative…

Angular momentum, or spin, is a fundamental property of black holes (BHs), yet it is much more difficult to estimate than mass or accretion rate (for actively accreting systems). In recent years, high-quality X-ray observations have allowed…

We re-examine archival Ginga data for the black hole binary system GS 1124-683, obtained when the system was undergoing its 1991 outburst. Our analysis estimates the dimensionless spin parameter a=cJ/GM^2 by fitting the X-ray continuum…

Accretion disc model fitting to optical/UV quasar spectra requires that the highest mass black holes have the highest spin, with implications on the hierarchical growth of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies over cosmic time.…

We review the current state of dynamical modeling for galaxies in terms of being able to measure both the central black hole mass and stellar orbital structure. Both of these must be known adequately to measure either property. The current…

Radiation from a narrow circular ring shows a characteristic double-horn profile dominated by photons having energy around the maximum or minimum of the allowed range, i.e. near the extremal values of the energy shift. The energy span of a…

Self-consistent vertical structure models together with non-LTE radiative transfer should produce spectra from accretion disks around black holes which differ from multitemperature blackbodies at levels which may be observed. High…

We develop a "dual cone" model for millimeter wavelength emission near a spinning black hole. The model consists of optically thin, luminous cones of emission, centered on the spin axis, which are meant to represent jet walls. The resulting…

Relativistic reflection features in the X-ray spectra of black hole binaries and AGNs are thought to be produced through illumination of a cold accretion disk by a hot corona. In this work, we assume that the corona has the shape of an…

The observational signatures of black holes in x-ray binary systems depend on their masses, spins, accretion rate and the misalignment angle between the black hole spin and the orbital angular momentum. We present optical polarimetric…

We have calculated the relativistic reflection component of the X-ray spectra of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei (AGN). Our calculations have shown that the spectra can be significantly modified by the motion of the accretion flow…

The fundamental parameters describing the coronal spectrum of an accreting black hole are the slope $\Gamma$ of the power-law continuum and the energy $E_{cut}$ at which it rolls over. Remarkably, this parameter can be accurately measured…

A model for determining the dimensionless spin parameter and mass of the black hole remnant of black hole-neutron star mergers with arbitrary initial black hole spin angular momentum, binary mass ratio, and neutron star mass and cold…

We extend our recent work on black hole spin in X-ray binary systems to include an analysis of 189 archival NuSTAR observations from 24 sources. Using self-consistent data reduction pipelines, spectral models, and statistical techniques, we…

Characterizing the properties of black holes is one of the most important science objectives for gravitational-wave observations. Astrophysical evidence suggests that black holes that are nearly extremal (i.e. spins near the theoretical…