Does the gravitomagnetic monopole exist? A clue from a black hole x-ray binary

TL;DR

This paper investigates the possible existence of the gravitomagnetic monopole by reconciling different black hole spin measurements through an extended model, providing initial observational evidence for this fundamental physics concept.

Contribution

It introduces a new parameter accounting for the gravitomagnetic monopole, unifying disparate spin measurement methods and aligning black hole mass estimates.

Findings

Inclusion of the monopole parameter reconciles different spin measurements.

The model aligns black hole mass with independent measurements.

First observational indication of the gravitomagnetic monopole.

Abstract

The gravitomagnetic monopole is the proposed gravitational analogue of Dirac's magnetic monopole. However, an observational evidence of this aspect of fundamental physics was elusive. Here, we employ a technique involving three primary X-ray observational methods used to measure a black hole spin to search for the gravitomagnetic monopole. These independent methods give significantly different spin values for an accreting black hole. We demonstrate that the inclusion of one extra parameter due to the gravitomagnetic monopole not only makes the spin and other parameter values inferred from the three methods consistent with each other but also makes the inferred black hole mass consistent with an independently measured value. We argue that this first indication of the gravitomagnetic monopole, within our paradigm, is not a result of fine tuning.