Related papers: Measuring Black Hole Spin in OJ287
The two established techniques for measuring black hole spin in X-ray binaries often yield conflicting results, which must be resolved before either method may be deemed robust. In practice, black hole spin measurements based on fitting the…
According to General Relativity, astrophysical black holes are described by a small number of parameters. Apart from the mass of the black hole (M), among the most interesting characteristics is the spin (a), which determines the degree of…
The bright blazar OJ 287 is the best-known candidate for hosting a supermassive black hole binary system. It inspirals due to the emission of nanohertz gravitational waves (GWs). Observations of historical and predicted quasi-periodic…
We compare GW150914 directly to simulations of coalescing binary black holes in full general relativity, accounting for all the spin-weighted quadrupolar modes, and separately accounting for all the quadrupolar and octopolar modes.…
We use the observed jet boundary transition from parabolic to conical shape, which was earlier discovered as possibly a common effect in active galactic nuclei, to estimate a black hole, a jet and an ambient medium parameters. We explained…
Black hole dynamics suggests that dark matter would re-distribute near a supermassive black hole to form a density spike. However, no direct evidence of dark matter density spike around a supermassive black hole has been identified. In this…
The X-ray spectra of accretion discs of eight stellar-mass black holes have been analyzed to date using the thermal continuum fitting method, and the spectral fits have been used to estimate the spin parameters of the black holes. However,…
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…
Two important parameters inferred from the gravitational wave signals of binaries of precessing black holes are the spin tilt angles, i.e., the angles at which the black holes' spin axes are inclined with respect to the binary's orbital…
Astrophysical black holes (BHs) have two fundamental properties: mass and spin. While the mass-evolution of BHs has been extensively studied, much less work has been done on predicting the distribution of BH spins. In this paper we present…
The launch of NuSTAR and the increasing number of binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected through gravitational wave (GW) observations have exponentially advanced our understanding of black holes. Despite the simplicity owed to being fully…
Building upon a new dynamical model for the X-ray binary LMC X-3, we measure the spin of its black hole primary via the continuum-fitting method. We consider over one thousand thermal-state RXTE X-ray spectra of LMC X-3. Using a large…
We estimate the black hole spin parameter in GRS 1915+105 using the continuum-fitting method with revised mass and inclination constraints based on the very long baseline interferometric parallax measurement of the distance to this source.…
Quantum higher-spin theory applied to Compton amplitudes has proven to be surprisingly useful for elucidating Kerr black hole dynamics. Here we apply the framework to compute scattering amplitudes and observables for a binary system of two…
We integrate the third and a half post-Newtonian equations of motion for a fully generic binary black hole system, allowing both for non-circular orbits, and for one or both of the black holes to spin, in any orientation. Using the second…
According to the no-hair theorem, astrophysical black holes are uniquely characterized by their masses and spins and are described by the Kerr metric. Several parametric spacetimes which deviate from the Kerr metric have been proposed in…
During the fourth observing run, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration reported the detection of a coalescing compact binary (GW230529$_{-}$181500) with component masses estimated at $2.5-4.5\, M_\odot$ and $1.2-2.0\, M_\odot$ with 90\%…
The black hole mass and spin estimates assuming various specific models of the 3:2 high frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (HF QPOs) have been carried out in Torok et al. (2005, 2011). Here we briefly summarize some current points.…
I report the discovery of a new effect of General Relativity which is important to understand very rapidly rotating (Kerr) black holes. The orbital velocity of a test particle is no longer a monotonic function of the orbit radius when the…
The future space-based gravitational wave detector LISA will be able to measure parameters of coalescing massive black hole binaries, often to extremely high accuracy. Previous work has demonstrated that the black hole spins can have a…