Black Holes Admitting Strong Resonant Phenomena

TL;DR

This paper explores how special black hole spins can lead to strong resonant phenomena in high-frequency QPOs, predicting specific frequency ratios and constraining black hole masses based on observed data.

Contribution

It identifies specific black hole spin values where multiple resonances can occur simultaneously, explaining complex QPO frequency ratios observed in various astrophysical sources.

Findings

Resonant phenomena can occur at specific black hole spins, notably a=0.983.

Predicted QPO frequency ratios include 3:2:1 and 4:3:2:1.

Black hole mass estimates for Sgr A* are consistent with observed QPOs.

Abstract

High-frequency twin peak quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) are observed in four microquasars, i.e., Galactic black hole binary systems, with frequency ratio very close to 3:2. In the microquasar GRS 1915+105, the structure of QPOs exhibits additional frequencies, and more than two frequencies are observed in the Galaxy nuclei Sgr A*, or in some extragalactic sources (NGC 4051, MCG-6-30-15 and NGC 5408 X-1). The observed QPOs can be explained by a variety of the orbital resonance model versions assuming resonance of oscillations with the Keplerian frequency or the vertical epicyclic frequency, and the radial epicyclic frequency, or some combinations of these frequencies. Generally, different resonances could arise at different radii of an accretion disc. However, we have shown that for special values of dimensionless black hole spin strong resonant phenomena could occur when different resonances can be excited at the same radius, as cooperative phenomena between the resonances may work in such situations. The special values of black hole spin are determined for triple frequency ratio sets \nu_{K} : \nu_{\theta} : \nu_{r} = s:t:u with s, t, u being small integers. The most promising example of such a special situation arises for black holes with extraordinary resonant spin a = 0.983 at the radius r = 2.395 M, where \nu_{K} : \nu_{\theta} : \nu_{r} = 3:2:1. We also predict that when combinations of the orbital frequencies are allowed, QPOs with four frequency ratio set 4:3:2:1 could be observed in the field of black holes with a = 0.866, 0.882 and 0.962. Assuming the extraordinary resonant spin a = 0.983 in Sgr A*, its QPOs with observed frequency ratio very close to 3:2:1 imply the black hole mass in the interval 4.3 x 10^6 M_sun < M < 5.4 x 10^6 M_sun, in agreement with estimates given by other, independent, observations.