Improved Reflection Models of Black Hole Accretion Disks: Treating the Angular Distribution of X-Rays

García, Javier A.; Dauser, Robert C.; Lohfink, A.; Kallman, T. R.; Steiner, James F.; McClintock, J. E.; Brenneman, Laura; Wilms, J.; Eikmann, W.; Reynolds, C. S.; Tombesi, Francesco

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/782/2/76

Cited by 687 publications

(693 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…We denote this as csimpl(2) (Compton scattering component), whereas csimpl(1) is the sum of the unscattered disk and Comptonised photons as in simpl. Gou et al (2014) used the xillver tables of García et al (2014) in order to describe the reflection from the disc. These have the most up-to-date treatment of atomic physics, but assume that the illuminating spectrum is a power law, i.e.…”

Section: Disk With Non-thermal Comptonisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black hole spin of Cygnus X-1 determined from the softest state ever observed

Kawano

Done

Yamada

et al. 2017

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

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We show the softest ever spectrum from Cyg X-1, detected in 2013 with Suzaku. This has the weakest high energy Compton tail ever seen from this object, so should give the cleanest view of the underlying disk spectrum, and hence the best determination of black hole spin from disk continuum fitting. Using the standard model of a disk with simple non-thermal Comptonisation to produce the weak high energy tail gives a high spin black hole. However, we get a significantly better fit by including an additional, low temperature thermal Comptonisation component, which allows a much lower black hole spin. Corroboration of the existence of an additional Compton component comes from the frequency dependent hard lags seen in the rapid variability in archival high/soft state data. These can not be explained if the continuum is a single non-thermal Comptonisation component, but are instead consistent with a radially stratified, multi zone Comptonisation spectrum, where the spectrum is softer further from the black hole. A complex multi-zone Comptonisation continuum is required to explain both spectra and timing together, and this has an impact on the derived black hole spin.

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Section: Disk With Non-thermal Comptonisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black hole spin of Cygnus X-1 determined from the softest state ever observed

Kawano

Done

Yamada

et al. 2017

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

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“…To model the reflection component, we use relxill v0.2h (García et al 2014a). That model combines the xillver model (García & Kallman 2010), which uses the atomic data of XSTAR (Kallman & Bautista 2001) to calculate angle-dependent reflection spectra, with the relativistic blurring code relline (Dauser et al 2010).…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectral analysis of theXMM–Newtondata of GX 339–4 in the low/hard state: disc truncation and reflection

Basak¹,

Zdziarski²

2016

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

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We analyse all available observations of GX 339-4 by XMM-Newton in the hard spectral state. We jointly fit the spectral data by Comptonization and the currently best reflection code, relxill. We consider in detail a contribution from a standard blackbody accretion disc, testing whether its inner radius can be set equal to that of the reflector. However, this leads to an unphysical behaviour of the disc truncation radius, implying the soft X-ray component is not a standard blackbody disc. This appears to be due to irradiation by the hard X-rays, which strongly dominate the total emission. We consider a large array of models, testing, e.g., the effects of the chosen energy range, of adding unblurred reflection, and assuming a lamppost geometry. We find the effects of relativistic broadening to be relatively weak in all cases. In the coronal models, we find the inner radius to be large. In the lamppost model, the inner radius is unconstrained, but when fixed to the innermost stable orbit, the height of the source is large, which also implies a weak relativistic broadening. In the former models, the inner radius correlates with the X-ray hardness ratio, which is consistent with the presence of a truncated disc turning into a complete disc in the soft state. We also find the degree of the disc ionization to anti-correlate with the hardness, leading to strong spectral broadening due to scattering of reflected photons in the reflector in the softest studied states.

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“…We use the most accurate relativistic reflection code available in the literature, the relxilllp model (García et al 2014). This model considers a lamp-post geometry in which the compact X-ray emitting source is located on the rotation axis of the black hole at a certain height in units of gravitational radii r g =GM BH /c 2 .…”

Section: Ionized Disk Reflectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

NuSTAR View of the Black Hole Wind in the Galaxy Merger IRAS F11119+3257

Tombesi

Veilleux

Meléndez

et al. 2017

ApJ

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Galactic winds driven by active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have been invoked to play a fundamental role in the coevolution between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. Finding observational evidence of such feedback mechanisms is of crucial importance and it requires a multi-wavelength approach in order to compare winds at different scales and phases. In Tombesi et al., we reported the detection of a powerful ultra-fast outflow (UFO) in the Suzaku X-ray spectrum of the ultra-luminous infrared galaxy IRASF11119+3257. The comparison with a galaxy-scale OH molecular outflow observed with Herschel in the same source supported the energyconserving scenario for AGN feedback. The main objective of this work is to perform an independent check of the Suzaku results using the higher sensitivity and wider X-ray continuum coverage of NuSTAR. We clearly detect a highly ionized Fe K UFO in the 100 ks NuSTAR spectrum with parameters N H =(3.2±1.5)×10 24 cm −2 , log ξ= - 0.061 . The launching radius is likely at a distance of r16r s from the black hole. The mass outflow rate is in the range ofṀ out ;0.5-2 M e yr −1 . The UFO momentum rate and power areṖ out ;0.5-2 L AGN /c andĖ out ;7%-27% L AGN , respectively. The UFO parameters are consistent between the 2013 Suzaku and the 2015 NuSTAR observations. Only the column density is found to be variable, possibly suggesting a clumpy wind. The comparison with the energetics of molecular outflows estimated in infrared and millimeter wavelengths support a connection between the nuclear and galaxy-scale winds in luminous AGNs.

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Improved Reflection Models of Black Hole Accretion Disks: Treating the Angular Distribution of X-Rays

Cited by 687 publications

References 69 publications

Black hole spin of Cygnus X-1 determined from the softest state ever observed

Black hole spin of Cygnus X-1 determined from the softest state ever observed

Spectral analysis of theXMM–Newtondata of GX 339–4 in the low/hard state: disc truncation and reflection

NuSTAR View of the Black Hole Wind in the Galaxy Merger IRAS F11119+3257

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