Toward More Accurate Synthetic Reflection Spectra: Improving the Calculations of Returning Radiation

Mirzaev T, Riaz S, Abdikamalov AB, Bambi C, Dauser T, Garcia JA, Jiang J, Liu H, Shashank S (2024)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2024

Journal

Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society

Book Volume: 965

Article Number: 66

Journal Issue: 1

DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad303b

Abstract

We present a new model to calculate reflection spectra of thin accretion disks in Kerr spacetimes. Our model includes the effect of returning radiation, which is the radiation that is emitted by the disk and returns to the disk because of the strong light bending near a black hole. The major improvement with respect to the existing models is that it calculates the reflection spectrum at every point on the disk by using the actual spectrum of the incident radiation. Assuming a lamppost coronal geometry, we simulate simultaneous observations of NICER and NuSTAR of bright Galactic black holes and we fit the simulated data with the latest version of relxill (modified to read the table of reflionx, which is the nonrelativistic reflection model used in our calculations). We find that relxill with returning radiation cannot fit well the simulated data when the black hole spin parameter is very high and the coronal height and disk’s ionization parameter are low, and some parameters can be significantly overestimated or underestimated. We can find better fits and recover the correct input parameters as the value of the black hole spin parameter decreases and the value of the coronal height increases.

Authors with CRIS profile

Thomas Dauser Dr.Karl-Remeis-Sternwarte Bamberg, Astronomisches Institut

Involved external institutions

Fudan University / 复旦大学 CN China (CN) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) US United States (USA) (US) University of Cambridge GB United Kingdom (GB)

How to cite

APA:

Mirzaev, T., Riaz, S., Abdikamalov, A.B., Bambi, C., Dauser, T., Garcia, J.A.,... Shashank, S. (2024). Toward More Accurate Synthetic Reflection Spectra: Improving the Calculations of Returning Radiation. Astrophysical Journal, 965(1). https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad303b

MLA:

Mirzaev, Temurbek, et al. "Toward More Accurate Synthetic Reflection Spectra: Improving the Calculations of Returning Radiation." Astrophysical Journal 965.1 (2024).

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