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A 15.65-solar-mass black hole in an eclipsing binary in the nearby spiral galaxy M 33
- Source :
- Nature. 449:872-875
- Publication Year :
- 2007
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2007.
-
Abstract
- Stellar-mass black holes are discovered in X-ray emitting binary systems, where their mass can be determined from the dynamics of their companion stars. Models of stellar evolution have difficulty producing black holes in close binaries with masses >10 solar masses, which is consistent with the fact that the most massive stellar black holes known so all have masses within 1 sigma of 10 solar masses. Here we report a mass of 15.65 +/- 1.45 solar masses for the black hole in the recently discovered system M33 X-7, which is located in the nearby galaxy Messier 33 (M33) and is the only known black hole that is in an eclipsing binary. In order to produce such a massive black hole, the progenitor star must have retained much of its outer envelope until after helium fusion in the core was completed. On the other hand, in order for the black hole to be in its present 3.45 day orbit about its 70.0 +/- 6.9 solar mass companion, there must have been a ``common envelope'' phase of evolution in which a significant amount of mass was lost from the system. We find the common envelope phase could not have occured in M33 X-7 unless the amount of mass lost from the progenitor during its evolution was an order of magnitude less than what is usually assumed in evolutionary models of massive stars.<br />To appear in Nature October 18, 2007. Four figures (one color figure degraded). Differs slightly from published version. Supplementary Information follows in a separate posting
- Subjects :
- Physics
Supermassive black hole
Multidisciplinary
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Astrophysics (astro-ph)
FOS: Physical sciences
Astronomy
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Quasi-star
Black hole
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Binary black hole
Intermediate-mass black hole
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Q star
Stellar black hole
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Schwarzschild radius
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14764687 and 00280836
- Volume :
- 449
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....7d9371dc57112fc0328b36c771fab6c5