A wide star-black-hole binary system from radial-velocity measurements

Liu, Jifeng; Zhang, Haotong; Howard, Andrew W.; Bai, Zhongrui; Lu, Youjun; Soria, Roberto; Justham, Stephen; Li, Xiangdong; Zheng, Zheng; Wang, Tinggui; Belczynski, Krzysztof; Casares, Jorge; Zhang, Wei; Yuan, Hailong; Dong, Yiqiao; Lei, Yajuan; Isaacson, Howard; Wang, Song; Bai, Yu; Shao, Yong; Gao, Qing; Wang, Yilun; Niu, Zexi; Cui, Kaiming; Zheng, Chuanjie; Mu, Xiaoyong; Zhang, Lan; Wang, Wei; Heger, Alexander; Qi, Zhaoxiang; Liao, Shilong; Lattanzi, Mario; Gu, Wei-Min; Wang, Junfeng; Wu, Jianfeng; Shao, Lijing; Shen, Rongfeng; Wang, Xiaofeng; Bregman, Joel; Di Stefano, Rosanne; Liu, Qingzhong; Han, Zhanwen; Zhang, Tianmeng; Wang, Huijuan; Ren, Juanjuan; Zhang, Junbo; Zhang, Jujia; Wang, Xiaoli; Cabrera-Lavers, Antonio; Corradi, Romano; Rebolo, R.; Zhao, Yongheng; Zhao, Gang; Chu, Yaoquan; Cui, Xiangqun
Bibliographical reference

Nature

Advertised on:
11
2019
Journal
Number of authors
55
IAC number of authors
4
Citations
160
Refereed citations
136
Description
All stellar-mass black holes have hitherto been identified by X-rays emitted from gas that is accreting onto the black hole from a companion star. These systems are all binaries with a black-hole mass that is less than 30 times that of the Sun1-4. Theory predicts, however, that X-ray-emitting systems form a minority of the total population of star-black-hole binaries5,6. When the black hole is not accreting gas, it can be found through radial-velocity measurements of the motion of the companion star. Here we report radial-velocity measurements taken over two years of the Galactic B-type star, LB-1. We find that the motion of the B star and an accompanying Hα emission line require the presence of a dark companion with a mass of 68-13+11 solar masses, which can only be a black hole. The long orbital period of 78.9 days shows that this is a wide binary system. Gravitational-wave experiments have detected black holes of similar mass, but the formation of such massive ones in a high-metallicity environment would be extremely challenging within current stellar evolution theories.
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