Innermost Stable Circular Orbit Research Articles

Correspondence of Concept of Circular Orbits in Schwarzschild Metric and Kerr Metric to those in Tidally Evolving Binaries in Weak Gravitational Regime and its Application in Determination of Spin of Supermassive Black Hole

This paper rederives diameters of the Innermost Stable Circular Orbits (ISCO) in Schwarzschild Metric (RDISCO = 6RSch for non-rotating BH with a =0) and in Kerr metric with particular reference to recently studied Super Massive Black Hole in NGC1365 (RDISCO = 9RSch for retrograde orbits and RDISCO = 1RSch for prograde orbits around maximally spinning BH of a=1). Next the same derivations are made in tidally evolving binaries based on kinematic model. Kinematic Model derivation corresponds to the derivations made in Kerr Metric for Circular Orbits in all its details at weak gravitation regime. At strong gravitation regime in Kerr metric, the two orbits converge to Innermost Stable Circular Orbit due to the Space-Time Curvature and Frame-Dragging Effect in the vicinity of SMBH. Kinematic model fails to arrive at ISCO since it has not included the relativistic mechanics.

Possible signatures of higher dimension in thin accretion disk around brane world black hole

We probe deeply into the characteristics of thin accretion disk surrounding black hole within the brane world paradigm. We investigate how model parameters affect the physical properties of the disk. Our findings indicate that as the tidal charge parameter inherited from the higher dimension increases, the energy flux, the radiation temperature, the spectral cutoff frequency, the spectral luminosity, and the conversion efficiency of the disk all increase, but the radius of the innermost stable circular orbit decreases. Compared to cases of the Kerr and Schwarzschild black holes, the disk is hotter and more luminous for positive tidal charge parameter, while it is cooler and less luminous for negative tidal charge parameter, which suggests the potential for probing possible signatures of higher dimension.

The 2018 Outburst of MAXI J1820+070 as Seen by Insight-HXMT

We present an analysis of the whole 2018 outburst of the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 with Insight-HXMT data. We focus our study on the temporal evolution of the parameters of the source. We employ two different models to fit the disk’s thermal spectrum: the Newtonian model diskbb and the relativistic model nkbb. These two models provide different pictures of the source in the soft state. With diskbb, we find that the inner edge of the disk is close to the innermost stable circular orbit of a fast-rotating black hole and the corona changes geometry from the hard to the soft state. With nkbb, we find that the disk is truncated in the soft state and that the coronal geometry does not change significantly during the whole outburst. However, the model with nkbb can predict an untruncated disk around a fast-rotating black hole if we assume that the disk inclination angle is around 30° (instead of ∼60°, which is the inclination angle of the jet and is usually adopted as the disk inclination angle in the literature) and we employ a high-density reflection model. In such a case, we measure a high value of the black hole spin parameter with observations in the soft state, in agreement with the high spin value found from the analysis of the reflection features and in disagreement with the low spin value found by previous continuum-fitting method measurements with the disk inclination angle set to the value of the jet inclination angle.

Circular motion and collisions of particles with magnetic dipole moment and electric charge in dipolar magnetosphere around Schwarzschild black holes

No-hair theorem indicates that black holes cannot have their own magnetic dipole moment. They can be weakly magnetized in binary systems with a neutron star companion and an accretion disc of charged particles. A simple model suggested by Petterson states that a current loop accreting a Schwarzschild black hole generates dipole-like magnetic fields in the outer region of the loop that are uniform in the inner region. This study considers circular motion and collisions of charged test particles with magnetic dipole moments in the inner and outer regions. First, we derive the effective potential taking into account the magnetic interactions between external magnetic fields with electric charge and the magnetic dipole moment of the particle. We investigate the possible innermost stable circular orbits (ISCOs) of the charged and magnetized particles orbiting the magnetized Schwarzschild black hole inside and outside the current loop. Finally, we explore the collisional processes of these particles near the black hole horizons, examining the effects of magnetic interactions on the critical angular momentum of particles that may collide and the center of mass energy of the colliding particles. We discuss astrophysical relevant objects with magnetic dipole moment and electric charge: magnetized neutron stars, white dwarfs, rotating stellar-mass black holes, electrons, and protons, and also estimate the interaction parameters for them.

Timelike bound orbits and pericenter precession around black hole with conformally coupled scalar hair

We investigate the geodesic motions of timelike particles around a static hairy black hole with conformally coupled scalar field. We mainly focus on the effects of the scalar charge and electric charge on the marginally bound orbits (MBO), innermost stable circular orbits (ISCO) and on the precessing orbits around this black hole. Our results show that both the scalar and electric charges suppress the energy as well as the angular momentum of the particles in the bound orbits. Then, we study the relativistic periastron precessions of the particles and constrain the charge parameters by employing the observational result of the S2 star’s precession in SgrA*. It is found that the constraints on the charge parameters from S2 star’s motion are tighter than those from black hole shadow. Finally, we analyze the periodic motions of the particles and figure out samples of periodic orbits’ configurations around the hairy black hole.

Quantum gravity modifications to the accretion onto a Kerr black hole

In the framework of the Asymptotic Safety scenario for quantum gravity, we analyze quantum gravity modifications to the thermal characteristics of a thin accretion disk spiraling around a renormalization group improved (RGI-) Kerr black hole in the low energy regime. We focused on the quantum effects on the location of the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO), the energy flux from the disk, the disk temperature, the observed redshifted luminosity, and the accretion efficiency. The deviations from the classical general relativity due to quantum effects are described for a free parameter that arises in the improved Kerr metric as a consequence of the fact that the Newton constant turns into a running coupling G(r) depending on the energy scale. We find that, both for rapid and slow rotating black holes with accretion disks in prograde and retrograde circulation, increases in the value of this parameter are accompanied by a decreasing of the ISCO, by a lifting of the peaks of the radiation properties of the disk and by an increase of the accretion mass efficiency, as compared with the predictions of general relativity. Our results confirm previously established findings in Zuluaga and Sánchez (Eur Phys J C 81:840, 2021) where we showed that these quantum gravity effects also occur for an accretion disk around a RGI-Schwarzschild black hole.

Plunging region emission in the X-ray binary MAXI J0637−430

ABSTRACT On 2019 November 2, the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J0637−430 went into outburst, at the start of which it was observed in a thermal ‘disc-dominated’ state. High photon energy (extending above 10 keV) observations taken by the NuSTAR telescope reveal that this thermal spectrum cannot be fit by conventional two-component (disc plus corona) approaches that ignore disc emission sourced from within the plunging region of the black hole’s space–time. Instead, these models require a third ‘additional’ thermal component to reproduce the data. Using new disc solutions that extend classical models into the plunging region, we show that this ‘additional’ thermal emission can be explained self-consistently with photons emitted from the accretion flow at radii within the innermost stable circular orbit of the black hole. This represents the second low-mass X-ray binary, after MAXI J1820+070, with a detection of plunging region emission, suggesting that signatures of this highly relativistic region may well be widespread but not previously widely appreciated. To allow for a detection of the plunging region, the black hole in MAXI J0637−430 must be at most moderately spinning, and we constrain the spin to be $a_\bullet \lt 0.86$ at 99.9 ${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ confidence. We finish by discussing the observational requirements for the robust detection of this region.

Energetic processes and thermodynamic analysis of the spinning Kiselev black hole with cloud of strings

Here we study the impact of the string clouds, the quintessence dark energy and other spacetime parameters on the center-of-mass energy, Penrose-process and thermodynamic properties of a stationary black hole solution of the Einstein field equations. We observe that the three distinct horizons i.e the Cauchy horizon, the event horizon and the cosmological horizon exist when the spin parameter a of the black hole is less than its extremal value aE. Interestingly we see that the infinite redshift surface of the black hole is not much sensitive to the quintessence parameter γ. It is sensitive to the parameter a and it increases as the parameter a increases. Further, we notice that an increase in the string cloud parameters b, quintessence parameter γ and a make the radius of the ergosphere of the black hole larger. We also notice that a rise in the parameter a makes the innermost stable circular orbits (ISCO) smaller and for an increase in the parameter b and γ the ISCO becomes larger than that for the Kerr spacetime. For the center-of-mass energy of the spinning black hole with quintessence and cloud of strings we observe that it can be arbitrarily high only for the extremal case of the black hole for a specific range of values of the angular momentum of the colliding particles. We notice that the Penrose-process is more efficient for smaller values of the string cloud parameter b and the parameter γ has no significant impact on this process. Moreover we see that an increase in the parameters b, γ and a cause the Helmholtz free energy to increase and opposite is true for the temperature of this type of rotating black hole. We learn that the area and entropy of the black hole are also depend on the parameters b, γ and a, and their effect make the entropy smaller. Interestingly we find a range of the horizon radius for the thermodynamic stability of the black hole. To get more information about the thermodynamic quantities of the rotating black hole with quintessence and cloud of strings, we plot them for different ranges of the spacetime parameters.

Particle acceleration near a rotating charged black hole in 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity

We investigate the horizon structure and ergosphere in a charged rotating black hole within 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, which introduces additional parameters (Q) because of the charge and Gauss-Bonnet parameter (β), besides the mass (M) and rotation parameter (a). Interestingly, for each value of the parameter Q (β), there is a critical GB parameter β=βE (Q=QE) that corresponds to an extremal black hole with degenerate horizons. For β<βE (Q<QE), it describes a non-extremal black hole with two horizons, and for β>βE (Q>QE), no black hole exists. The extremal value βE (QE) is also affected by the GB parameter α and the ergosphere. We also study the collision of two equal-mass particles near the horizon of this black hole and explicitly show the effect of the parameter β (Q). The innermost stable circular orbits (ISCO) and the effective potential, which governs the motion of particles in spacetime, have been analyzed for different parameter values. The centre-of-mass energy (ECM) depends on the rotation parameter a and the parameters β and Q. We investigate the ECM of two colliding particles near the horizon for both extremal and non-extremal cases. It is shown that in extremal cases, when one of the colliding particles has a critical angular momentum, the ECM can be arbitrarily high, suggesting that the charged rotating in 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity can function as a particle accelerator. Despite the complexity of the BH solution, an exact expression for the thermodynamic quantities of black holes, such as the mass, Hawking temperature, and entropy, is derived in terms of the horizon radius. These quantities show significant deviations from the Kerr solution because of the influence of the Gauss-Bonnet parameter and electric charge.

Infinitely degenerate slowly rotating solutions in f(R) gravity

This work tests the no-hair conjecture in f(R) gravity models. No-hair conjecture asserts that all black holes in general relativity coupled to any matter must be Kerr–Newman type. However, the conjecture fails in some cases with non-linear matter sources. Here, we address this by explicitly constructing multiple slow-rotating black hole solutions, up to second order in rotational parameter, for a class of f(R) models ( f(R)=(α0+α1R)p,p>1 ). Such an f(R) includes all higher-powers of R. We analytically show that multiple vacuum solutions satisfy the field equations up to the second order in the rotational parameter. In other words, we show that the multiple vacuum solutions depend on arbitrary constants, which depend on the coupling parameters of the model. Hence, our results indicate that the no-hair theorem for modified gravity theories merits extending to include the coupling constants. The uniqueness of our result stems from the fact that these are obtained directly from metric formalism without conformal transformation. We discuss the kinematical properties of these black hole solutions and compare them with slow-rotating Kerr. Specifically, we show that the circular orbits for the black holes in f(R) are smaller than that of Kerr. This implies that the inner-most stable circular orbit for black holes in f(R) is smaller than Kerr’s; hence, the shadow radius might also be smaller. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for future observations.

Precessing and periodic timelike orbits and their potential applications in Einsteinian cubic gravity

Einsteinian cubic gravity (ECG) is the most general theory up to cubic order in curvature, which has the same graviton spectrum as the Einstein theory. In this paper, we investigate the geodesic motions of timelike particles around the four dimensional asymptotically flat black holes in ECG, and discuss their potential applications when connecting them with recent observational results. We first explore the effects of the cubic couplings on the marginally bound orbits (MBO), innermost stable circular orbits (ISCO) and on the periodic orbits around the Einsteinian cubic black hole. We find that comparing to Schwarzschild black hole in general relativity, the cubic coupling enhances the energy as well as the angular momentum for all the bound orbits of the particles. Then, we derive the relativistic periastron precessions of the particles and give a preliminary bound on the cubic coupling employing the observational result of the S2 star’s pericenter precession in SgrA*. Finally, after calculating the periodic orbits’ configurations, we preliminarily evaluate the gravitational waveform radiated from several periodic orbits in one complete period of a test object which orbits a supermassive Einsteinian cubic black hole. Our studies could be helpful for us to better understand the gravitational structure of the theory with high curvatures.

Continuum emission from within the plunging region of black hole discs

ABSTRACT The thermal continuum emission observed from accreting black holes across X-ray bands has the potential to be leveraged as a powerful probe of the mass and spin of the central black hole. The vast majority of existing ‘continuum fitting’ models neglect emission sourced at and within the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) of the black hole. Numerical simulations, however, find non-zero emission sourced from these regions. In this work, we extend existing techniques by including the emission sourced from within the plunging region, utilizing new analytical models that reproduce the properties of numerical accretion simulations. We show that in general the neglected intra-ISCO emission produces a hot-and-small quasi-blackbody component, but can also produce a weak power-law tail for more extreme parameter regions. A similar hot-and-small blackbody component has been added in by hand in an ad hoc manner to previous analyses of X-ray binary spectra. We show that the X-ray spectrum of MAXI J1820+070 in a soft-state outburst is extremely well described by a full Kerr black hole disc, while conventional models that neglect intra-ISCO emission are unable to reproduce the data. We believe this represents the first robust detection of intra-ISCO emission in the literature, and allows additional constraints to be placed on the MAXI J1820 + 070 black hole spin which must be low a• &amp;lt; 0.5 to allow a detectable intra-ISCO region. Emission from within the ISCO is the dominant emission component in the MAXI J1820 + 070 spectrum between 6 and 10 keV, highlighting the necessity of including this region. Our continuum fitting model is made publicly available.

Shadows and properties of spin-induced scalarized black holes with and without a Ricci coupling

In this work, we explore the properties and shadows of spin-induced scalarized black holes, as well as investigate how a Ricci coupling influences them. Our findings reveal significant deviations from the Kerr metric in terms of the location and geodesic frequencies of the innermost stable circular orbit and light ring, with the former exhibiting more pronounced disparities. The shadows of scalarized black holes exhibit relatively minor deviations when compared to those of Kerr black holes with the same mass and spin. Overall, the presence of a Ricci coupling is observed to mitigate deviations from the Kerr metric. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Kinematic Model Yields Two Geo-Synchronous Orbits of E-M System and M-P-D System Validated by Total Energy Analysis

In Black Holes (BH) studies , a well-tested method of total energy analysis is used by which the radius of Innermost Stable Circular Orbit (ISCO) around the central BH is analyzed and the dimensionless spin parameter of BH is extracted. The same total energy analysis is utilized in case of E-M and M-P planet-satellite pairs and their extremum points are obtained. The energy maxima happens to be the inner unstable co-rotational orbit (aG1) and the energy minima happens to be outer stable corotational orbit(aG2) in case of E-M and M-P systems and their values from KM correspond to those obtained from Energy Analysis. This vindicates KM of binary pairs

Resolving the vicinity of supermassive black holes with gravitational microlensing

ABSTRACT Upcoming wide-field surveys will discover thousands of new strongly lensed quasars which will be monitored with unprecedented cadence by the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Many of these quasars will undergo caustic-crossing events over the 10-yr LSST survey, during which the quasar’s inner accretion disc crosses a caustic feature produced by an ensemble of microlenses. Such caustic-crossing events offer the unique opportunity to probe the vicinity of the central supermassive black hole, especially when combined with high cadence, multi-instrument follow-up triggered by LSST monitoring. To simulate the high-cadence optical monitoring of caustic-crossing events, we use relativistic accretion disc models which leads to strong asymmetric features. We develop analysis methods to measure the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) crossing time of isolated caustic-crossing events and benchmark their performance on our simulations. We also use our simulations to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) to infer the black hole mass, inclination angle, and impact angle directly from these light curves. As a pilot application of our methods, we used archival caustic-crossings of QSO 2237+0305 to estimate the black hole mass and inclination angle. From these data, two of these methods called the second derivative and wavelet methods measure an ISCO crossing time of 48.5 and 49.5 d, corresponding to a Kerr black hole mass of MBH = (1.5 ± 1.2) × 109 and (1.5 ± 1.3) × 109 M⊙, respectively. The CNN inferred log10(MBH/M⊙) = 8.35 ± 0.30 when trained on Schwarzschild black hole simulations, and a moderate inclination of i = 45 ± 23°. These measurements are found to be consistent with previous estimates.

Dynamical Properties of Magnetized Low-angular-momentum Accretion Flows around a Kerr Black Hole

An essential factor for determining the characteristics of an accretion flow is its angular momentum. According to the angular momentum of the flow, semi-analytical analysis suggests various types of accretion solutions. It is critical to test these with numerical simulations, using the most advanced framework available (general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics), to understand how the flow changes with different angular momentum. By changing the initial condition of the accretion torus minimally, we can simulate a steady, low-angular-momentum accretion flow around a Kerr black hole. We focus primarily on the lower limits of angular momentum and find that an accretion flow with an intermediate range of angular momentum differs significantly from high- or very-low-angular-momentum flows. The intermediate-angular-momentum accretion flow has the highest density, pressure, and temperature near the black hole, making it easier to observe. We find that the density and pressure have power-law scalings ρ ∝ r n−3/2 and p g ∝ r n−5/2, which only hold for very-low-angular-momentum cases. With the increase in flow angular momentum, it develops a nonaxisymmetric nature. In this case, simple self-similarity does not hold. We also find that the sonic surface moves away from the innermost stable circular orbit as the angular momentum decreases. Finally, we emphasize that an intermediate-angular-momentum flow could provide a possible solution to explaining the complex observation features of the supermassive black hole Sgr A* at our galactic center.

On Innermost Stable Spherical Orbits near a Rotating Black Hole: A Numerical Study of the Particle Motion near the Plunging Region

According to general relativity, astrophysical black holes are described by a small number of parameters. Apart from the mass of the black hole (M), among the most interesting characteristics is the spin (a), which determines the degree of rotation, i.e., the angular momentum of the black hole. The latter is observationally constrained by the spectral and timing properties of the radiation signal emerging from an accretion disk of matter orbiting near the event horizon. In the case of the planar (standard, equatorial) accretion disk, this is the location of the innermost stable circular orbit that determines the observable radiation characteristics and allows us to measure the spin. In this paper, we discuss a more general case of the innermost stable spherical orbits (ISSOs) extending above and below the equatorial plane. To this end, we study the nonequatorial geodesic motion of particles following inclined, spherical, relativistically precessing trajectories with the aim of exploring the boundary between the regions of stable (energetically bound) and escaping (energetically unbound) motion. The concept of the radius of the ISSO should play a role in determining the inner rim of a tilted or geometrically thick accretion flow. We demonstrate that the region of inclined bound orbits has a complicated structure due to enhanced precession near the inner rim. We also explore the fate of particles launched below the radius of the marginally bound spherical orbit: these may either plunge into the event horizon or escape to radial infinity.

Rethinking the 67 Hz QPO in GRS 1915+105: Type C quasi-periodic oscillations at the innermost stable circular orbit

Context. We study quasi-periodic oscillations (QPO) at low and high frequency in the variability of the high-energy emission from black hole binaries and their physical interpretation in terms of signatures of General Relativity in the strong-field regime. Aims. We wish to understand the nature of the 67 Hz QPOs observed in the X-ray emission of the peculiar black hole binary GRS 1915+105 within the general classification of QPOs, and to determine the spin of the black hole in the system by applying the relativistic precession model (RPM). Methods. Within the RPM, the only relativistic frequency that is stable in time over a wide range of accretion rates and can be as low as 67 Hz (for a dynamically measured black hole mass) is the nodal frequency at the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO). In the application of the model, this corresponds to type C QPOs. Under this assumption, it is possible to measure the spin of the black hole by using the mass of the black hole previously obtained via dynamical measurements. We re-analysed a large number of Rossi-XTE observations to determine whether other timing features confirm this hypothesis. Results. The identification of the 67 Hz QPO as the nodal frequency at ISCO yields a value of 0.706 ± 0.034 for the black hole spin. With this spin, the only two QPO detections at higher frequencies available in the literature are consistent with being orbital frequencies at a radius outside ISCO. The high-frequency bumps often observed at frequencies between 10 and 200 Hz follow the correlation expected for orbital and periastron-precession frequencies at even larger radii.

The universal power spectrum of quasars in optical wavelengths

Context. The optical variability of quasars is one of the few windows through which we can explore the behaviour of accretion discs around supermassive black holes. Aims. We aim to establish the dependence of variability properties, such as characteristic timescales and the variability amplitude, on basic quasar parameters such as black hole mass and the accretion rate, controlling for the rest-frame wavelength of emission. Methods. Using large catalogues of quasars, we selected the g-band light curves for 4770 objects from the Zwicky Transient Facility archive. All the selected objects fall into a narrow redshift bin, 0.6 &lt; z &lt; 0.7, but cover a wide range of accretion rates in Eddington units (REdd) and black hole masses (M). We grouped these objects into 26 independent bins according to these parameters, calculated low-resolution g-band variability power spectra for each of these bins, and approximated the power spectra with a simple analytic model that features a break at a timescale, tb. Results. We find a clear dependence of the break timescale, tb, on REdd, on top of the known dependence of tb on the black hole mass, M. In our fits, tb ∝ M0.65 − 0.55REdd0.35−0.3, where the ranges in the exponents correspond to the best-fitting parameters of different power spectrum models. This mass dependence is slightly steeper than that found in other studies. Scaling tb to the orbital timescale of the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO), tISCO, results approximately in tb/tISCO ∝ (REdd/M)0.35. In the standard thin disc model, (REdd/M) ∝ Tmax4, where Tmax is the maximum disc temperature, so that tb/tISCO appears to scale approximately with the maximum temperature of the disc to a small power. The observed values of tb are ∼10 longer than the orbital timescale at the light-weighted average radius of the disc region emitting in the (observer frame) g-band. The different scaling of the break frequency with M and REdd shows that the shape of the variability power spectrum cannot be solely a function of the quasar luminosity, even for a single rest-frame wavelength. Finally, the best-fitting models have slopes above the break in the range between −2.5 and −3. A slope of −2, as in the damped random walk models, fits the data significantly worse.

Collisions and dynamics of particles with magnetic dipole moment and electric charge near magnetized rotating Kerr black holes

Analysis of test magnetized and charged particles around black holes immersed in external magnetic fields may help to explain the observed astrophysical phenomena related to black holes, such as the acceleration of particles up to high energies. In this sense, we studied the circular motion of test-charged particles with magnetic dipole orbiting around magnetized rotating Kerr black holes. First, we derive the effective potential for the circular motion of such particles, including interactions between the external magnetic field and the electric charge, and the magnetic interaction between the magnetic dipole. In addition, we analyze the angular momentum and energy of particles corresponding to circular orbits. The effects of magnetic interaction and coupling parameters on the position of innermost stable circular orbits (ISCOs), the energy and angular momentum of the particles at ISCO, and the energy efficiency from the Novikov-Thorne accretion disc have been investigated. We also find cases of degeneracy between magnetic dipole interaction and magnetic coupling parameters, giving the same ISCO radius. Finally, we studied various cases of collisions of neutral, magnetized, and electrically charged particles near rotating Kerr black holes in the presence of external magnetic fields. The critical angular momentum of spinning charged particles is found in which the particles can collide. We also analyze the effects of both magnetic interactions on the center-of-mass energy of the colliding particles.