Related papers: Observing Black Holes Spin
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…
In the standard paradigm, astrophysical black holes can be described solely by their mass and angular momentum - commonly referred to as `spin' - resulting from the process of their birth and subsequent growth via accretion. Whilst the mass…
Since the seminal work of Penrose (1969) and Blandford & Znajek (1977), it has been realized that black hole spin may be an important energy source in astrophysics. The radio-loud/radio-quiet dichotomy in the AGN population is usually…
It has for long been an article of faith among astrophysicists that black hole spin energy is responsible for powering the relativistic jets seen in accreting black holes. Two recent advances have strengthened the case. First, numerical…
Black hole spin will have a large impact on searches for gravitational waves with advanced detectors. While only a few stellar mass black hole spins have been measured using X-ray techniques, gravitational wave detectors have the capacity…
Do black holes rotate, and if yes, how fast? This question is fundamental and has broad implications, but still remains open. There are significant observational challenges in current spin determinations, and future facilities offer…
Fast variability studies of accreting black holes in the Galaxy offer us a unique opportunity to measure the spins of black holes and test the strong-field behavior of general relativity. In this review, I summarize the arguments often used…
The spins of ten stellar black holes have been measured using the continuum-fitting method. These black holes are located in two distinct classes of X-ray binary systems, one that is persistently X-ray bright and another that is transient.…
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…
Relativistic reflection features are commonly observed in the X-ray spectra of accreting black holes. In the presence of high quality data and with the correct astrophysical model, X-ray reflection spectroscopy can be quite a powerful tool…
The mass of a black hole is the sum of the irreducible mass and the mass associated with the rotational or spin energy of the black hole. The contribution of spin energy (divided by $c^2$) to the total black hole mass is studied here for…
Measurements of black-hole spins are of crucial importance to fulfill the promise of gravitational-wave astronomy. On the astrophysics side, spins are perhaps the cleanest indicator of black-hole evolutionary processes, thus providing a…
Black hole spin is a quantity of great interest to both physicists and astrophysicists. We review the current status of spin measurements in supermassive black holes (SMBH). To date, every robust SMBH spin measurement uses X-ray reflection…
Over the last decades X-ray spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful tool for the estimation of black hole spin and several other key parameters in dozens of AGN and black hole X-ray binaries. In this White Paper, we discuss the…
Supermassive black holes may be described by their mass and spin. When supermassive black holes are active, the activity provides a probe of the state of the black hole system. The spin of a hole can be estimated when the black hole mass…
Rotating black holes when attached to a cosmic string have their rotational energy extracted leading to a change in its spin and mass. The spin of a black hole can be measured using various methods for an accreting black hole in an X-ray…
Black hole spins affect the efficiency of the "classical" accretion processes, hence the radiative output from quasars. Spins also determine how much energy is extractable from the hole itself. Recently it became clear that massive black…
We generalize the effective point particle approach to black hole dynamics to include spin. In this approach dissipative effects are captured by degrees of freedom localized on the wordline. The absorptive properties of the black hole are…
A new approach to constraining or determining the spin of a massive black hole is proposed. A key parameter in the analysis is the dimensionless ratio, r, of the energy released to the mass of the hole. It is shown that the black hole spin,…
The article summarizes the observational evidence for the existence of massive black holes, as well as the current knowledge about their abundance, their mass and spin distributions, and their cosmic evolution within and together with their…