2020/02/21 by Kaitlyn Porter, Keigo Fukumura
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Black hole (networking) #Context (archaeology) #Flare #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Line (geometry) #Photon #Schwarzschild radius #Spectral line #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab7893
accepted to ApJ, 6 figs
arxiv created 2020/02/21 · openalex created_date 2020/03/06 · openalex publication_date 2020/04/01 · arxiv updated 2020/04/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract We consider a temporal response of relativistically broadened line spectrum of iron from black hole accretion irradiated by an X-ray echo under strong gravity. The physical condition of accreting gas is numerically calculated in the context of general relativistic hydrodynamics under steady-state axisymmetry in Kerr geometry. With the onset of a point-like X-ray flare of a short finite duration just above the accretion surface, the gas is assumed to be ionized to produce a neutral iron fluorescent line. Using a fully relativistic ray-tracing approach, the response of line photons due to the X-ray illumination is traced as a function of time and energy for different source configurations around Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes. Our calculations show that the X-ray echo on the accretion surface clearly imprints a characteristic time-variability in the line spectral features depending on those parameters. Simulated line profiles, aimed for the future microcalorimeter missions of large collecting area such as Athena /X-IFU for typical radio-quiet Seyfert galaxies, are presented to demonstrate that state-of-the-art new observations could differentiate various source parameters by such an X-ray tomographic line reverberation.