NuSTAR and Swift observations of the very high state in GX 339-4: Weighing the black hole with X-rays

A. C. Fabian; C. J. Hailey; D. Barret; D. J. Walton; D. Stern; F. A. Harrison; F. E. Christensen; F. Fuerst; J. A. Kennea; J. A. Tomsick

NuSTAR and Swift observations of the very high state in GX 339-4: Weighing the black hole with X-rays

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

Re-run · record.json Download PDF Read on arXiv ↗

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 1603.03777 v1 pith:Z5MZYGDV submitted 2016-03-11 astro-ph.HE

NuSTAR and Swift observations of the very high state in GX 339-4: Weighing the black hole with X-rays

M. L. Parker , J. A. Tomsick , J. A. Kennea , J. M. Miller , F. A. Harrison , D. Barret , S. E. Boggs , F. E. Christensen

show 9 more authors

W. W. Craig A. C. Fabian F. Fuerst V. Grinberg C. J. Hailey P. Romano D. Stern D. J. Walton W. W. Zhang

This is my paper

classification astro-ph.HE

keywords fittingnustarreflectionblackcontinuumdiskdistanceerrors

verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved

0 comments

read the original abstract

We present results from spectral fitting of the very high state of GX~339-4 with NuSTAR and Swift. We use relativistic reflection modelling to measure the spin of the black hole and inclination of the inner disk, and find a spin of $a=0.95^{+0.02}_{-0.08}$ and inclination of $30${\deg}$\pm1$ (statistical errors). These values agree well with previous results from reflection modelling. With the exceptional sensitivity of NuSTAR at the high-energy side of the disk spectrum, we are able to constrain multiple physical parameters simultaneously using continuum fitting. By using the constraints from reflection as input for the continuum fitting method, we invert the conventional fitting procedure to estimate the mass and distance of GX~339-4 using just the X-ray spectrum, finding a mass of $9.0^{+1.6}_{-1.2}M_\odot$ and distance of $8.4\pm0.9$ kpc (statistical errors).

discussion (0)

Forward citations

Cited by 1 Pith paper

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

Physics and Astrophysics of Black Holes with eXTP
astro-ph.HE 2026-07 accept novelty 2.0

eXTP’s larger effective area and simultaneous polarimetry will tighten black-hole spin and Kerr-deviation constraints relative to NICER for the same exposure.