Cygnus X-1 contains a 21-solar mass black hole-Implications for massive star winds
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Open access
Authors
Miller-Jones, James
Bahramian, Arash
Orosz, J.A.
Mande, I.
Gou, L.
Maccarone, T.J.
Neijsse, C.J.
Zhao, X.
Ziółkowski, J.
Reid, M.J.
Uttley, P.
Zheng, X.
Byun, D.Y.
Dodson, R.
Grinberg, V.
Jung, T.
Kim, J.S.
Marcote, B.
Markoff, S.
Rioja, M.J.
Rushton, A.P.
Russell, D.M.
Sivakoff, G.R.
Tetarenko, A.J.
Tudose, V.
Wilms, J.
Date
2021Type
Journal Article
Metadata
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Miller-Jones, J.C.A. and Bahramian, A. and Orosz, J.A. and Mande, I. and Gou, L. and Maccarone, T.J. and Neijsse, C.J. et al. 2021. Cygnus X-1 contains a 21-solar mass black hole-Implications for massive star winds. Science. 371 (6533): pp. 1046-1049.
Source Title
Science
ISSN
Faculty
Faculty of Science and Engineering
School
School of Elec Eng, Comp and Math Sci (EECMS)
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Collection
Abstract
The evolution of massive stars is influenced by the mass lost to stellar winds over their lifetimes. These winds limit the masses of the stellar remnants (such as black holes) that the stars ultimately produce. We used radio astrometry to refine the distance to the black hole X-ray binary Cygnus X-1, which we found to be 2:220:180:17 kiloparsecs. When combined with archival optical data, this implies a black hole mass of 21.2 ± 2.2 solar masses, which is higher than previous measurements. The formation of such a high-mass black hole in a high-metallicity system (within the Milky Way) constrains wind mass loss from massive stars.