1998/12/05 by Sergei Nayakshin, Nayakshin, Sergei
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9812109
12 pages, LATeX (paspconf.sty), 1 figure. To appear in proceedings of "Quasars and Cosmology" (1998 May 18-22, La Serena, Chile), ASP Conference Series, ed. G. Ferland
arxiv created 1998/12/05 · openalex publication_date 1998/12/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Recent progress in observations and understanding of spectra of Seyfert Galaxies shows that X-rays are most likely produced by magnetic flares on the surface of the disk, similar to Solar X-ray emission. However, while the model reproduces the shape of the spectrum well, the question of the overall normalization of the X-ray component relative to the bolometric luminosity has not been previously considered. Here we show that, in gas-dominated accretion disks, the magnetic energy transport can indeed power the corona in a way consistent with observations, \it if magnetic field in the disk is mostly contained to strong magnetic flux tubes. However, in radiation dominated disks radiation diffusion makes the field weak/diffuse, and thus the magnetic energy transport is less efficient, i.e., in such disks the disk intrinsic emission should be the dominant component in the overall spectrum. We compare our findings to observations, and conclude that our theory can account for the often observed ``steeper when brighter'' behavior in AGN and the hard-soft spectral transitions in GBHCs.