X-ray Polarimetry as a Tool to Measure the Black Hole Spin in Microquasars: Simulations of IXPE Capabilities

Abstract

Measurements of the angular momentum (spin) of astrophysical black holes are extremely important, as they provide information on the black hole formation and evolution. We present simulated observations of a X-ray binary system with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), with the aim to study the robustness of black hole spin and geometry measurements using X-ray polarimetry. As a representative example, we used the parameters of GRS 1915+105 in its former unobscured, soft state. In order to simulate the polarization properties, we modeled the source emission with a multicolor blackbody accounting for thermal radiation from the accretion disk, including returning radiation. Our analysis shows that the polarimetric observations in the X-ray waveband will be able to estimate both spin and inclination of the system with a good precision (without returning radiation we obtained for the lowest spin $\Delta a\le 0.4$ (0.4/0.998 $\sim$ 40%) for spin and $\Delta i\le 30^{\circ }$ (30${}^{\circ }$/70${}^{\circ }$ $\sim$ 43%) for inclination, while for the higher spin values we obtained $\Delta a\le 0.12$ ($\sim$ 12%) for spin and $\Delta i\le 20^{\circ }$ ($\sim$ 29%) for inclination, within 1$\sigma$ errors). When focusing on the case of returning radiation and treating inclination as a known parameter, we were able to successfully reconstruct spin and disk albedo in $\Delta a\le 0.15$ ($\sim$ 15%) interval and $\Delta$ albedo $\le 0.45$ (45%) intervals within 1$\sigma$ errors. We conclude that X-ray polarimetry will be a useful tool to constrain black hole spins, in addition to timing and spectral-fitting methods.

arXiv comment11 pages, 10 figures

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• X-ray polarisation properties of thermal-radiative disc winds in binary systems
• First X-ray polarization measurement confirms the low black-hole spin in LMC X-3
• Accretion Disc Evolution in GRO J1655-40 and LMC X-3 with Relativistic and Non-Relativistic Disc Models
• Accretion Geometry of Black Hole X-ray Binaries: Insights from X-ray Observations
• The detection of high X-ray polarization from an accretion disc corona source and its modelling via Monte Carlo radiation transfer simulation
• Measuring black hole spin through gravitational lensing of pulsars