Magnetic fields in active galactic nuclei and microquasars

2002/12/04 by A. F. Zakharov, N. S. Kardashev, Н. С. Кардашев +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06638.x

published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 342 (2003) 1325 · 9 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRAS

arxiv created 2002/12/04 · openalex publication_date 2003/07/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Observations of AGNs and microquasars by ASCA, RXTE, Chandra and XMM-Newton indicate the existence of wide X-ray emission lines of heavy ionized elements in their spectra. The emission can arise in the inner parts of accretion discs where the effects of General Relativity (GR) must be counted, moreover such effects can dominate. We describe a procedure to estimate an upper limit of the magnetic fields in the regions where X-ray photons are emitted. We simulate typical profiles of the iron K_α line in the presence of a magnetic field and compare them with observational data. As an illustration we find H < 10¹⁰ - 10¹¹ Gs for Seyfert galaxy MCG--6--30--15. Using the perspective facilities of measurement devices (e.g. Constellation-X mission) a better resolution of the blue peak structure of iron K_α line will allow to find the value of the magnetic fields if the latter are high enough.

Citations

• The Principles of Quantum Mechanics
• Evidence for a relativistic iron line in GRS 1915+105
• Global Structure of the Kerr Family of Gravitational Fields
• On the origin of the broad, relativistic iron line of MCG–6-30-15observed by XMM-Newton
• ASCAObservations of Seyfert 1 Galaxies. II. Relativistic Iron Kα Emission