Towards a complete description of spectra and polarization of black hole accretion discs: albedo profiles and returning radiation

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985815%3A_____%2F20%3A00536880" target="_blank" >RIV/67985815:_____/20:00536880 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa598" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa598</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa598" target="_blank" >10.1093/mnras/staa598</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Towards a complete description of spectra and polarization of black hole accretion discs: albedo profiles and returning radiation

Original language description

Accretion discs around stellarmass black holes (BHs) emit radiation peaking in the soft X-rays when the source is in the thermal state. The emerging photons are polarized and, for symmetry reasons, the polarization integrated over the source is expected to be either parallel or perpendicular to the (projected) disc symmetry axis, because of electron scattering in the disc. However, due to general relativity effects photon polarization vectors will rotate with respect to their original orientation, by an amount depending on both the BH spin and the observer's inclination. Hence, X-ray polarization measurements may provide important information about strong gravity effects around these sources. Along with the spectral and polarization properties of radiation which reaches directly the observer once emitted from the disc, in this paper we also include the contribution of returning radiation, i.e. photons that are bent by the strong BH gravity to return again on the disc, where they scatter until eventually escaping to infinity. A comparison between our results and those obtained in previous works by different authors shows an overall good agreement, despite the use of different code architectures. We finally consider the effects of absorption in the disc material by including more realistic albedo profiles for the disc surface. Our findings in this respect show that considering also the ionization state of the disc may deeply modify the behaviour of polarization observables.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10308 - Astronomy (including astrophysics,space science)

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA18-00533S" target="_blank" >GA18-00533S: Reverberation from Black Hole accretion discs</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

ISSN

1365-2966

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

493

Issue of the periodical within the volume

4

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

4960-4977

UT code for WoS article

000539094400028

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85097971280