On the selection of models for the high-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations of black holes: The mass problem

TL;DR

This paper evaluates nine models for high-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations in black-hole binaries by comparing their mass predictions with known masses, discarding five models and proposing a statistical assessment method.

Contribution

It introduces a method to test and compare models for black-hole oscillations against known mass measurements, identifying the most consistent models.

Findings

Five models are discarded based on mass prediction conflicts.

A statistical method for model assessment is proposed.

Some models align well with known black hole masses.

Abstract

High-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations of the X-ray flux comming from black-hole binaries have the potential to provide precise estimates of the mass and the spin of the central black hole, if an adequate model for them was available. There are several models in the literature but none of them is commonly accepted. One way to test the available models is to confront their predictions for the masses of black holes with results obtained through other methods. Here, we study the mass bounds that nine of the most commonly used models provide for the three microquasars with known masses GRS 1915+105, GRO 1655-40 and XTE 1550-564 which display high-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations in their X-ray spectra. We also propose a statistical method for the assessment of the average success of the models. The results allow us to discard five of them. Here, "the mass problem" designates the conflict between their predictions and the reference masses.