Relativistic lines from accretion discs around black holes
Minimum credit line: Image courtesy of G. Matt, Universita degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy, and K. Beckwith, Universityof Durham, UK, and ESA. (for details, see Conditions of Use).
Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
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| About this Image |
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X-ray spectroscopy can probe the inner regions of the accretion discs around black holes, where strong gravity effects modify significantly the energy and path of emitted photons. In the left panel a color coded image of an accretion disc is shown. The radiation from approaching (receding) matter is blue- (red-)shifted due to the Doppler effect. All radiation is then further redshifted by Gravitational and Doppler transverse effects, the effect increasing with decreasing radii. Note also the hat-like shape due to the light bending of photons when passing near the Black Hole. These effects are best studied in the profiles of emission lines (iron Kalpha line being usually the brightest one). In the upper right panel a typical line profile is shown. The effects of Special (Doppler Boosting and Doppler transverse redshift) and General (Gravitational redshift) Relativity effects are shown. The extension of the red tail depends mainly on the inner disc radius, which in turn depends on the Black Hole spin (usually parametrized by the adimensional angular momentum per unit mass, a). This is illustrated in the lower right panel, where profiles obtained for a static (a=0) and a maximally rotating (a=1) Black Holes are shown (this figure has been made by using the "diskline" and "laor" model in XSPEC).
Investigator(s): G. Matt, K. Beckwith, et al.
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