Indian Scientists Show Black Hole Spin Shapes X-ray Flickering Frequencies

Key facts

• Researchers at the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), under India's Department of Science and Technology, led a simulation-based study linking black hole spin to quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in X-ray emissions.
• The team included collaborators from the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Poland and Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh; the findings were reported by the Press Information Bureau on October 23, 2026, and published in the Journal of High Energy Astrophysics.
• The study used numerical simulations of viscous accretion flows, showing that shock waves oscillating in matter falling toward a black hole can explain quasi-periodic X-ray variations.
• Slowly spinning black holes place oscillating shocks farther out, producing lower frequencies, while rapid spin allows the shock to move closer and a wider range of frequencies to emerge.
• For a black hole about ten times the Sun's mass, the model predicts some oscillation frequencies could exceed 100 hertz under very high spin conditions.