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X-ray constraints on the number of stellar mass black holes in the inner parsec
- Source :
- Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 54:306-310
- Publication Year :
- 2006
- Publisher :
- IOP Publishing, 2006.
-
Abstract
- Due to dynamical friction stellar mass black holes should form a cusp in the inner parsec. Calculations [5, 6] show that approximately 20 thousand black holes would be present in a sphere with radius of about a parsec around Sgr A*. The presence of these objects opens up the possibility that they might be accreting ''cool'' gas (i.e. the Minispiral) as discussed by Morris [6]. Here we calculate the X-ray emission expected from these black holes as a method to constrain their population. We find that the data limits the total number of such black holes to around 10 - 20 thousand. Even a much smaller number of such black holes, i.e. 5 thousand, is sufficient to produce several sources with X-ray luminosity above Lx ~ 1033 erg s−1 at any one time. We suggest that some of the discrete X-ray sources observed by Muno [7] with Chandra in the inner parsec may be such ''fake X-ray binaries''.
- Subjects :
- Physics
History
Stellar mass
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Galactic Center
Astronomy
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Computer Science Applications
Education
Quasi-star
Black hole
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Binary black hole
Intermediate-mass black hole
Stellar black hole
Spin-flip
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17426596 and 17426588
- Volume :
- 54
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Physics: Conference Series
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........bbe39bf3f6db00562f6c5c961663fed3