Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Hurley, DJ,Callanan, PJ,Elebert, P,Reynolds, MT
2013
April
Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society
The mass of the black hole in GRS 1915+105: new constraints from infrared spectroscopy
Validated
Optional Fields
stars: individual: GRS 1915+105 infrared: stars X-rays: binaries ACCRETION DISK GRS-1915+105 BINARIES SPECTRA GALAXY STATES DONOR
430
1832
1838
GRS 1915+105 has the largest mass function of any Galactic black hole system, although the error is relatively large. Here we present spectroscopic analysis of medium-resolution infrared Very Large Telescope archival data of GRS 1915+105 in the K band. We find an updated ephemeris, and report on attempts to improve the mass function by a refinement of the radial velocity estimate. We show that the spectra are significantly affected by the presence of phase-dependent CO bandhead emission, possibly originating from the accretion disc: we discuss the impact this has on efforts to better constrain the black hole mass. We report on a possible way to measure the radial velocity utilizing apparent H-band atomic absorption features and also discuss the general uncertainty of the system parameters of this well-studied object.
10.1093/mnras/stt001
Grant Details