A red giant orbiting a black hole

Abstract

We report spectroscopic and photometric follow-up of a dormant black hole (BH) candidate from Gaia DR3. The system, which we call Gaia BH2, contains a $\sim 1M_{\odot }$ red giant and a dark companion with mass $M_2=8.9\pm 0.3M_{\odot }$ that is very likely a BH. The orbital period, $P_{\mathrm{orb}}=1277$ days, is much longer than that of any previously studied BH binary. Our radial velocity (RV) follow-up over a 7-month period spans more than 90% of the orbit's dynamic range in RV and is in excellent agreement with predictions of the Gaia solution. UV imaging and high-resolution optical spectra rule out all plausible luminous companions that could explain the orbit. The star is a bright ($G=12.3$), slightly metal-poor ($[Fe/H]=-0.22$) low-luminosity giant ($T_{\mathrm{eff}}=4600\mathrm{K}$; $R=7.8R_{\odot }$; $\log \left[g/\left(\mathrm{cm}{\mathrm{s}}^{-2}\right)\right]=2.6$). The binary's orbit is moderately eccentric ($e=0.52$). The giant is strongly enhanced in $\hat{I}\pm -$elements, with $[\hat{\mathrm{I}}\pm /Fe]=+0.26$, but the system's Galactocentric orbit is typical of the thin disk. We obtained X-ray and radio nondetections of the source near periastron, which support BH accretion models in which the net accretion rate at the horizon is much lower than the Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton rate. At a distance of 1.16 kpc, Gaia BH2 is the second-nearest known BH, after Gaia BH1. Its orbit -- like that of Gaia BH1 -- seems too wide to have formed through common envelope evolution. Gaia BH1 and BH2 have orbital periods at opposite edges of the Gaia DR3 sensitivity curve, perhaps hinting at a bimodal intrinsic period distribution for wide BH binaries. Dormant BH binaries like Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2 likely significantly outnumber their close, X-ray bright cousins, but their formation pathways remain uncertain.

Accepted to MNRAS