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Related papers: The Spin of Supermassive Black Holes

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I review the current status of X-ray reflection (a.k.a. broad iron line) based black hole spin measurements. This is a powerful technique that allows us to measure robust black hole spins across the mass range, from the stellar-mass black…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-15 Christopher S. Reynolds

Measuring the spins of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) can inform us about the relative role of gas accretion vs. mergers in recent epochs of the life of the host galaxy and its AGN. Recent advances in…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2013-09-26 Laura Brenneman

X-ray reflection is a very powerful method to assess the spin of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGN), yet this technique is not universally accepted. Indeed, complex reprocessing (absorption, scattering) of the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-06-13 E. S. Kammoun , E. Nardini , G. Risaliti

Understanding the growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) requires observational constraints on how their angular momentum (or spin) varies with mass, since the relative importance of coherent accretion, chaotic accretion, and mergers…

We determined the spin value of supermassive black hole (SMBH) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) with investigated ultraviolet-to-optical spectral energy distribution, presented in the sample of Shang et al. (2005). The estimates of the spin…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-12-20 M. Yu. Piotrovich , Yu. N. Gnedin , T. M. Natsvlishvili , S. D. Buliga

Being one of only two fundamental properties black holes possess, the spin of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is of great interest for understanding accretion processes and galaxy evolution. However, in these early days of spin…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2016-03-16 K. Bonson , L. C. Gallo

The spin of a black hole is an important quantity to study, providing a window into the processes by which a black hole was born and grew. Further, spin can be a potent energy source for powering relativistic jets and energetic particle…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-12-01 Christopher S. Reynolds

Spin measurements of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) provide crucial constraints on the accretion processes that power active galactic nuclei (AGN), fuel outflows, and trigger black hole growth. However, spin measurements are mainly…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-08-21 Mackenzie Jones , Laura Brenneman , Francesca Civano , Giorgio Lanzuisi , Stefano Marchesi

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-03-29 Paul A. Draghis , Jon M. Miller , Abderahmen Zoghbi , Mark Reynolds , Elisa Costantini , Luigi C. Gallo , John A. Tomsick

X-ray reflection spectroscopy has evolved as one of the leading methods to measure black hole spins. However, the question is whether its measurements are subjected to systematic biases, especially considering the possible discrepancy…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-12-23 Swarnim Shashank , Askar B. Abdikamalov , Honghui Liu , Abdurakhmon Nosirov , Cosimo Bambi , Indu K. Dihingia , Yosuke Mizuno

In astronomy, the problem of black holes is arguably second in importance only to the problem of cosmology. A current frontier in black hole research is the measurement of spin. During the past three years, the spins of several stellar-mass…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2009-03-10 Jeffrey E. McClintock , Ronald A. Remillard

The spin of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) is directly related to the radiative efficiency of accretion on to the hole, and therefore impacts the amount of fuel required for the black hole to reach a certain mass. Thus, a knowledge of the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-18 D. R. Ballantyne

This paper explores the possibility of determining the spin of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in Sgr A*, by using secondary images of stars orbiting the SMBH. The photons propagate close to the SMBH and their trajectories probe the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-03-21 Jonas Helboe Jørgensen , Ole Ole Eggers Bjælde , Steen Hannestad

We review current challenges in understanding the values and origin of the spins of black holes in binaries. Thanks to recent advances in astrophysical instrumentation, the spins can now be measured using both gravitational waves emitted by…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-02-06 Andrzej A. Zdziarski , Gregoire Marcel , Alexandra Veledina , Aleksandra Olejak , Debora Lancova

In addition to providing vital clues as to the formation and evolution of black holes, the spin of black holes may be an important energy source in the Universe. Over the past couple of years, tremendous progress has been made in the realm…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-03 C. S. Reynolds , L. W. Brenneman , A. M. Lohfink , M. L. Trippe , J. M. Miller , R. C. Reis , M. A. Nowak , A. C. Fabian

We estimated spin, inclination angle and corresponding SMBH mass values for sample of extremely distant (6 < z < 7.5) ultraluminous quasars. The estimated spin values are on average greater that 0.9 and the spin distribution has a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-07-17 M. Yu. Piotrovich , S. D. Buliga , T. M. Natsvlishvili

Constraining the primary growth channel of supermassive black holes (SMBH) remains one the most actively debated questions in the context of cosmological structure formation. Owing to the expected connection between SMBH spin parameter…

The spin is an important but poorly constrained parameter for describing supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Using the continuity equation of SMBH number density, we explicitly obtain the mass-dependent cosmological evolution of the radiative…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-04 Yan-Rong Li , Jian-Min Wang , Luis C. Ho

The spin of a black hole retains the memory of how the black hole grew, and can be a potent source of energy for powering relativistic jets. To understand the diagnostic power and astrophysical significance of black hole spin, however, we…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-03-29 Christopher S. Reynolds

While supermassive black hole masses have been cataloged across cosmic time, only a few dozen of them have robust spin measurements. By extending and improving the existing Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) array, the next-generation Event…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-11-09 Angelo Ricarte , Paul Tiede , Razieh Emami , Aditya Tamar , Priyamvada Natarajan
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