ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Light bending scenario for accreting black holes in X-ray polarimetry

164   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Michal Dovciak
 تاريخ النشر 2011
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

We discuss a model of an X-ray illuminating source above an accretion disk of a rotating black hole. Within the so called lamp-post scheme we compute the expected (observed) polarization properties of the radiation reaching an observer. We explore the dependencies on model parameters, employing Monte Carlo radiation transfer computations of the X-ray reflection on the accretion disk and taking general relativity effects into account. In particular, we discuss the role of the black hole spin, of the observer viewing angle, and of the primary X-ray source distance from the black hole. We give several examples of the resulting polarization degree for two types of exemplary objects - active galactic nuclei and Galactic black holes. In order to assess potential observability of the polarization features, we assume the sensitivity of the proposed New Hard X-ray Mission (NHXM). We examine the energy range from several keV to ~50 keV, so the iron-line complex and the Compton hump are included in our model spectra. We find the resultant polarization degree to increase at the higher end of the studied energy band, i.e. at >~20 keV. Thus, the best results for polarimetry of reflection spectra should be achieved at the Compton hump energy region. We also obtain higher polarization degree for large spin values of the black hole, small heights of the primary source, and low inclination angles of the observer.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

Luminous accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes produce power-law continuum X-ray emission from a compact central corona. Reverberation time lags occur due to light travel time-delays between changes in the direct coronal emission and co rresponding variations in its reflection from the accretion flow. Reverberation is detectable using light curves made in different X-ray energy bands, since the direct and reflected components have different spectral shapes. Larger, lower frequency, lags are also seen and are identified with propagation of fluctuations through the accretion flow and associated corona. We review the evidence for X-ray reverberation in active galactic nuclei and black hole X-ray binaries, showing how it can be best measured and how it may be modelled. The timescales and energy-dependence of the high frequency reverberation lags show that much of the signal is originating from very close to the black hole in some objects, within a few gravitational radii of the event horizon. We consider how these signals can be studied in the future to carry out X-ray reverberation mapping of the regions closest to black holes.
208 - Daichi Tsuna , Norita Kawanaka , 2018
Detectability of isolated black holes (IBHs) without a companion star but emitting X-rays by accretion from dense interstellar medium (ISM) or molecular cloud gas is investigated. We calculate orbits of IBHs in the Galaxy to derive a realistic spatia l distribution of IBHs, for various mean values of kick velocity at their birth $upsilon_{rm avg}$. X-ray luminosities of these IBHs are then calculated considering various phases of ISM and molecular clouds, for a wide range of the accretion efficiency $lambda$ (a ratio of the actual accretion rate to the Bondi rate) that is rather uncertain. It is found that detectable IBHs mostly reside near the Galactic Centre (GC), and hence taking the Galactic structure into account is essential. In the hard X-ray band, where identification of IBHs from other contaminating X-ray sources may be easier, the expected number of IBHs detectable by the past survey by NuSTAR towards GC is at most order unity. However, 30--100 IBHs may be detected by the future survey by FORCE with an optimistic parameter set of $upsilon_{rm avg} = 50 mathrm{km s^{-1}}$ and $lambda = 0.1$, implying that it may be possible to detect IBHs or constrain the model parameters.
Accreting black holes show characteristic reflection features in their X-ray spectrum, including an iron K$alpha$ line, resulting from hard X-ray continuum photons illuminating the accretion disk. The reverberation lag resulting from the path length difference between direct and reflected emission provides a powerful tool to probe the innermost regions around both stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. Here, we present for the first time a reverberation mapping formalism that enables modeling of energy dependent time lags and variability amplitude for a wide range of variability timescales, taking the complete information of the cross-spectrum into account. We use a pivoting power-law model to account for the spectral variability of the continuum that dominates over the reverberation lags for longer time scale variability. We use an analytic approximation to self-consistently account for the non-linear effects caused by this continuum spectral variability, which have been ignored by all previous reverberation studies. We find that ignoring these non-linear effects can bias measurements of the reverberation lags, particularly at low frequencies. Since our model is analytic, we are able to fit simultaneously for a wide range of Fourier frequencies without prohibitive computational expense. We also introduce a formalism of fitting to real and imaginary parts of our cross-spectrum statistic, which naturally avoids some mistakes/inaccuracies previously common in the literature. We perform proof-of-principle fits to Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer data of Cygnus X-1.
I outline the theory of accretion onto black holes, and its application to observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, tidal disruption events, and gamma-ray bursts. The dynamics as well as radiative signatures of black hole ac cretion depend on interactions between the relatively simple black-hole spacetime and complex radiation, plasma and magnetohydrodynamical processes in the surrounding gas. I will show how transient accretion processes could provide clues to these interactions. Larger global magnetohydrodynamic simulations as well as simulations incorporating plasma microphysics and full radiation hydrodynamics will be needed to unravel some of the current mysteries of black hole accretion.
The innermost regions of accretion disks around black holes are strongly irradiated by X-rays that are emitted from a highly variable, compact corona, in the immediate vicinity of the black hole. The X-rays that are seen reflected from the disk and t he time delays, as variations in the X-ray emission echo or reverberate off the disk provide a view of the environment just outside the event horizon. I Zwicky 1 (I Zw 1), is a nearby narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxy. Previous studies of the reverberation of X-rays from its accretion disk revealed that the corona is composed of two components; an extended, slowly varying component over the surface of the inner accretion disk, and a collimated core, with luminosity fluctuations propagating upwards from its base, which dominates the more rapid variability. Here we report observations of X-ray flares emitted from around the supermassive black hole in I Zw 1. X-ray reflection from the accretion disk is detected through a relativistically broadened iron K line and Compton hump in the X-ray emission spectrum. Analysis of the X-ray flares reveals short flashes of photons consistent with the re-emergence of emission from behind the black hole. The energy shifts of these photons identify their origins from different parts of the disk. These are photons that reverberate off the far side of the disk and bent around the black hole and magnified by the strong gravitational field. Observing photons bent around the black hole confirms a key prediction of General Relativity.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا