Observational Constraints on Black Hole Spin

Abstract

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 acceleration. In this review, I describe the techniques currently used to detect and measure the spins of black holes. It is shown that: (1) Two well understood techniques, X-ray reflection spectroscopy and thermal continuum fitting, can be used to measure the spins of black holes that are accreting at moderate rates. There is a rich set of other electromagnetic techniques allowing us to extend spin measurements to lower accretion rates. (2) Many accreting supermassive black holes are found to be rapidly-spinning, although a population of more slowly spinning black holes emerges at masses above $M>3\times 10^7{M}_{\odot }$ as expected from recent structure formation models. (3) Many accreting stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binary systems are rapidly spinning and must have been born in this state. (4) The advent of gravitational wave astronomy has enabled the detection of spin effects in merging binary black holes. Most of the pre-merger black holes are found to be slowly spinning, a notable exception being an object that may itself be a merger product. (5) The stark difference in spins between the black hole X-ray binary and the binary black hole populations shows that there is a diversity of formation mechanisms. Given the array of new electromagnetic and gravitational wave capabilities currently being planned, the future of black hole spin studies is bright.

42 pages, 6 figures. Invited review to be published in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Cited by in corpus (40)

• GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
• GWTC-2.1: Deep Extended Catalog of Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
• The X-shooter/ALMA Sample of Quasars in the Epoch of Reionization. II. Black Hole Masses, Eddington Ratios, and the Formation of the First Quasars
• New constraints on light Axion-Like Particles using Chandra Transmission Grating Spectroscopy of the powerful cluster-hosted quasar H1821+643
• Disk, Corona, Jet Connection in the Intermediate State of MAXI J1820+070 Revealed by NICER Spectral-Timing Analysis
• Einstein-Æther Gravity in the light of Event Horizon Telescope Observations of M87*
• Apples and Oranges: Comparing black holes in X-ray binaries and gravitational-wave sources
• A Systematic View of Ten New Black Hole Spins
• Black hole mass and spin measurements through the Relativistic Precession Model: XTE J1859+226
• Thermal Ringdown of a Kerr Black Hole: Overtone Excitation, Fermi-Dirac Statistics and Greybody Factor
• Population properties and multimessenger prospects of neutron star-black hole mergers following GWTC-3
• Blandford-Znajek jets in galaxy formation simulations: exploring the diversity of outflows produced by spin-driven AGN jets in Seyfert galaxies
• Spinning black holes magnetically connected to a Keplerian disk -- Magnetosphere, reconnection sheet, particle acceleration and coronal heating
• Physical origin of the nonphysical spin evolution of MAXI J1820+070
• Isolated and dynamical black hole mergers with \texttt{B-POP}: the role of star formation and dynamics, star cluster evolution, natal kicks, mass and spins, and hierarchical mergers
• On Detecting Equatorial Symmetry Breaking with LISA
• reXcor: A Model of the X-ray Spectrum of Active Galactic Nuclei that Combines Ionized Reflection and a Warm Corona
• Improved gravitational radiation time-scales II: spin-orbit contributions and environmental perturbations
• Searching for Ultra-light Bosons and Constraining Black Hole Spin Distributions with Stellar Tidal Disruption Events
• High-redshift SMBHs can grow from stellar-mass seeds via chaotic accretion
• An Elusive Population of Massive Disk Galaxies Hosting Double-lobed Radio-loud AGNs
• Quantum gravity lights up spinning black holes
• The properties of wind and jet from a super-Eddington accretion flow around a supermassive black hole
• Common origin for black holes in both high mass X-ray binaries and gravitational-wave sources
• The Inner Accretion Flow in the Resurgent Seyfert-1.2 AGN Mrk 817
• Slowly Decaying Ringdown of a Rapidly Spinning Black Hole: Probing the No-Hair Theorem by Small Mass-Ratio Mergers with LISA
• A Hard Look At Relativistic Reverberation in MCG-5-23-16 & SWIFT J2127.4+5654: Testing the Lamp-Post Model
• How the super-Eddington regime affects black hole spin evolution in high-redshift galaxies
• X-ray timing and spectral analysis of reverberating active galactic nuclei
• Electromagnetic signatures of strong-field gravity from accreting black holes
• Large-scale asymmetry in galaxy spin directions -- analysis of galaxies with spectra in DES, SDSS, and DESI Legacy Survey
• Exploring higher order images with Fe K_α-lines from relativistic disks: black hole spin determination and bias
• A Spectroscopic Angle on Central Engine Size Scales in Accreting Neutron Stars
• Using X-ray continuum-fitting to estimate the spin of MAXI J1305-704
• The disk-torus system in active galactic nuclei: possible evidence of highly spinning black holes
• Lamp-post with an outflow and the hard state of Cyg X-1
• Explaining the 'outliers' track in Black Hole X-ray Binaries with the BZ-jet and inner-disk coupling
• The imprint of gas on gravitational waves from LISA intermediate-mass black hole binaries
• Evidence for a moderate spin from X-ray reflection of the high-mass supermassive black hole in the cluster-hosted quasar H1821+643
• The Spin and Orientation of the Black Hole in XTE J1908$+$094