High-frequency X-ray variability as a mass estimator of stellar and supermassive black holes

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are scaled-up versions of Galactic black holes. We show that the amplitude of high-frequency X-ray variability in the hard spectral state is inversely proportional to the black hole mass over eight orders of magnitude. We have analyzed all available hard-state data from RXTE of seven Galactic black holes. Their power density spectra change dramatically from observation to observation, except for the high-frequency (>10 Hz) tail, which seems to have a universal shape, roughly represented by a power law of index -2. The amplitude of the tail, C_M (extrapolated to 1 Hz), remains approximately constant for a given source, regardless of the luminosity, unlike the break or QPO frequencies, which are usually strongly correlated with luminosity. Comparison with a moderate-luminosity sample of AGN shows that the amplitude of the tail is a simple function of black hole mass, C_M = C/M, where C = 1.25 M_Sol / Hz. This makes C_M a robust estimator of the black hole mass which is easy to apply to low- to moderate-luminosity supermassive black holes. The high-frequency tail with its universal shape is an invariant feature of a black hole and, possibly, an imprint of the last stable orbit.

MNRAS, 9 pages, 7 figures

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