X-ray Polarimetry as a Tool to Measure the Black Hole Spin in Microquasars: Simulations of IXPE Capabilities

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to demonstrate that X-ray polarimetry with IXPE can accurately measure black hole spins and system inclinations in microquasars, enhancing current methods of black hole characterization.

Contribution

The paper presents the first detailed simulation-based analysis of IXPE's capability to measure black hole spin and inclination using X-ray polarimetry, including effects of returning radiation.

Findings

IXPE can estimate black hole spin with ~12-40% accuracy.

Inclination can be measured within ~20-43 degrees precision.

X-ray polarimetry complements timing and spectral methods for black hole studies.

Abstract

Measurements of the angular momentum (spin) of astrophysical black holes are extremely important, as they provide information on the black hole formation and evolution. We present simulated observations of a X-ray binary system with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), with the aim to study the robustness of black hole spin and geometry measurements using X-ray polarimetry. As a representative example, we used the parameters of GRS 1915+105 in its former unobscured, soft state. In order to simulate the polarization properties, we modeled the source emission with a multicolor blackbody accounting for thermal radiation from the accretion disk, including returning radiation. Our analysis shows that the polarimetric observations in the X-ray waveband will be able to estimate both spin and inclination of the system with a good precision (without returning radiation we obtained for the lowest spin $\Delta a \leq 0.4$ (0.4/0.998 $\sim$ 40%) for spin and $\Delta i \leq 30^\circ$ (30$^\circ$/70$^\circ$ $\sim$ 43%) for inclination, while for the higher spin values we obtained $\Delta a \leq 0.12$ ($\sim$ 12%) for spin and $\Delta i \leq 20^\circ$ ($ \sim $ 29%) for inclination, within 1$ \sigma $ errors). When focusing on the case of returning radiation and treating inclination as a known parameter, we were able to successfully reconstruct spin and disk albedo in $\Delta a \leq 0.15$ ($\sim$ 15%) interval and $\Delta$ albedo $\leq 0.45$ (45%) intervals within 1$ \sigma $ errors. We conclude that X-ray polarimetry will be a useful tool to constrain black hole spins, in addition to timing and spectral-fitting methods.