Revisiting Stellar Systems J0946 and V723 Monocerotis: A Study of Mass Gap Black Hole Candidates

TL;DR

This study revisits stellar systems J0946 and V723 Monocerotis, applying Bayesian modeling to refine black hole companion estimates and assessing the prevalence of stellar-mass black holes in existing datasets.

Contribution

It implements Bayesian statistical methods to re-estimate black hole companion masses and inclinations, providing more accurate parameters and evaluating dataset indications of stellar-mass black holes.

Findings

Revised inclination and mass estimates for J0946 and V723 Mon.

No strong evidence of stellar-mass black holes in Gaia DR2 and NASA archives.

Bayesian methods improve parameter estimation accuracy.

Abstract

In 2023, Rowan et al. reported the discovery of a black hole (BH) companion to J0946, following the misidentification of V723 Mon by Jayasinghe et al. as containing a "mass-gap" BH. This article reproduced Rowan and Jayasinghe's results on these systems by estimating stellar parameters via Markov Chain Monte Carlo solvers. We implemented Bayesian statistical modeling through the software ExoFit and PHysics of Eclipsing Binaries (PHOEBE). For J0946, we found a higher inclination of i = 72 degrees and a companion mass of 2.78 solar masses, lower than what Rowan estimated. V723 Mon's results aligned with recent estimates by El Badry et al., yielding an inclination of i = 74 degrees and a mass of 2.56 solar masses. We tested this method on stars from Gaia DR2 and the NASA Exoplanet Archive, agreeing with previous findings that these datasets do not exhibit strong indications of stellar-mass black hole systems.