Pair production, Comptonization and dynamics in astrophysical plasmas

Details Pair production, Comptonization and dynamics in astrophysical plasmas Pair production, Comptonization and dynamics in astrophysical plasmas

Feb 1985

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1985mnras.212..523g&link_type=abstract

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (ISSN 0035-8711), vol. 212, Feb. 1, 1985, p. 523-544. Research supported by th

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

56

Compton Effect, Cosmic Plasma, Electron-Positron Pairs, Pair Production, Plasma Dynamics, Cooling, Galactic Nuclei, High Temperature Plasmas, Optical Thickness, Photons

Scientific paper

Electron-positron pair production is an important cooling mechanism for plasmas at mildly relativistic temperatures. A thorough understanding of the process is necessary to explain the hard X-ray spectra of AGNs and gamma-ray bursters. An investigation is presented of thermal plasmas with temperatures kT approximately equal to m(e)sq c and optical depths of about 1-5, including pair processes, Comptonization and bremsstrahlung. Results are presented for equilibrium and impulsively heated models. It is found that, in the former case, the observed spectrum is featureless, but in the latter case it can show a broad, flat annihilation feature. The non-thermal pair production in plasmas confined by strong magnetic fields, such as those thought to exist at the surface of neutron stars, is discussed. It is shown that two photon pair production cannot give an annihilation feature, but that magnetic pair production (gamma B to positron-electron) can give a significant annihilation line. Finally, consideration is given to simple dynamical systems and the effect of expansion on the spectrum of a gas in which pair production is important. Adiabatic cooling steepens the flat spectral feature to omega to the -3rd in the thermal case, and in the nonthermal case the spectrum has a flat component with a turnover at about 2 MeV.

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