Testing the No-Hair Theorem with Observations in the Electromagnetic Spectrum. IV. Relativistically Broadened Iron Lines

TL;DR

This paper investigates how relativistically broadened iron line profiles in X-ray spectra can test the no-hair theorem by detecting deviations from the Kerr metric around black holes, with implications for future observations.

Contribution

It introduces a framework to calculate iron line profiles accounting for potential deviations from the Kerr metric, enabling observational tests of the no-hair theorem.

Findings

Deviations from Kerr significantly alter iron line profiles.

Disk inclination can be measured independently of spin and deviations.

Future X-ray missions can constrain deviations with ~5% precision.

Abstract

According to the no-hair theorem, astrophysical black holes are fully characterized by their masses and spins and are described by the Kerr metric. This theorem can be tested observationally by measuring (at least) three different multipole moments of the spacetimes of black holes. In this paper, we calculate the profiles of fluorescent iron lines emitted from the accretion flows around black hole candidates within a framework that allows us to perform the calculation as a function of its mass and spin as well as of a free parameter that measures potential deviations from the Kerr metric. We show that such deviations lead to line profiles that are significantly altered and may exhibit a modified flux ratio of the two peaks in their characteristic double-peaked shape. We also show that the disk inclination can be measured independently of the spin and the deviation parameter at low to intermediate inclination angles as in the case of Kerr black holes. We estimate the precision that near-future X-ray missions such as Astro-H and ATHENA+ are required to achieve in order to resolve deviations from the Kerr metric in iron line profiles and show that constraints on such deviations will be strongest for rapidly spinning black holes. More generally, we show that measuring the line profile with a precision of ~5% at disk inclinations of 30 or 60 degrees constraints the deviation parameter to order unity for values of the spin a>0.5M.