2014/10/16 by Yoshiyuki Inoue, Akihiro Doi · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Active galactic nucleus #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Corona (planetary geology) #Electron #Equipartition theorem #Magnetic field #Submillimeter Array #Synchrotron #Synchrotron radiation #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/pasj/psu079
5 pages, 2 figures, published from PASJ
openalex publication_date 2014/10/16 · arxiv created 2014/11/10 · arxiv updated 2014/11/11 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract The heating mechanism of a corona above an accretion disk in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is still unknown. One possible mechanism is magnetic reconnection heating requiring energy equipartition between magnetic energy and gas energy in the disk. Here, we investigate the expected observed properties in the radio band from such a magnetized corona. A magnetized corona can generate synchrotron radiation since a huge amount of electrons exists. Although most of the radiation would be absorbed by synchrotron self-absorption, high-frequency end of synchrotron emission can escape from a corona and appear at the submillimeter range. If only thermal electrons exist in a corona, the expected flux from nearby Seyferts is below the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) sensitivity. However, if non-thermal electrons coexist in a corona, ALMA can measure the non-thermal tail of the synchrotron radiation from a corona. Such a non-thermal population is naturally expected to exist if the corona is heated by magnetic reconnections. Future ALMA observations will directly probe the coronal magnetic field strength and the existence of non-thermal electrons in coronae of AGNs.