Orbital Comptonization in accretion disks around black holes

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

We have performed Monte Carlo simulations of Compton upscattering of low-energy photons in an accretion disk around a Schwarzschild black hole. The photons gain energy from the rotational motion of the electrons in the disk. The upscattering occurs near the black hole horizon, where the flow velocity of the electrons approaches the speed of light. We show that this type of bulk-flow Comptonization can produce power-law X-ray spectra similar to the ones observed in black-hole X-ray transients in the high/soft state, i.e., a soft bump dominating the spectrum below ˜ 10 keV and a power-law tail with photon index in the range 2--3. In order to reproduce the observed hard to soft flux ratio the disk has to have vertical optical depth above 3 at the last stable orbit.We conclude that the power-law component of the high/soft state of black-hole transients may be due to an intrinsically cool disk extending all the way to the hole, without a separate hot plasma component.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Orbital Comptonization in accretion disks around black holes does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Orbital Comptonization in accretion disks around black holes, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Orbital Comptonization in accretion disks around black holes will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1862915

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.