X-ray Dust Scattering at Small Angles: The Complete Halo around GX13+1

The exquisite angular resolution available with Chandra should allow precision measurements of faint diffuse emission surrounding bright sources, such as the X-ray scattering halos created by interstellar dust. However, the ACIS CCDs suffer from pileup when observing bright sources, and this creates difficulties when trying to extract the scattered halo near the source. The initial study of the X-ray halo around GX13+1 using only the ACIS-I detector done by Smith, Edgar & Shafer (2002) suffered from a lack of sensitivity within 50'' of the source, limiting what conclusions could be drawn. To address this problem, observations of GX13+1 were obtained with the Chandra HRC-I and simultaneously with the RXTE PCA. Combined with the existing ACIS-I data, this allowed measurements of the X-ray halo between 2-1000''. After considering a range of dust models, each assumed to be smoothly distributed with or without a dense cloud along the line of sight, the results show that there is no evidence in this data for a dense cloud near the source, as suggested by Xiang et al. (2005). Finally, although no model leads to formally acceptable results, the Weingartner & Draine (2001) and nearly all of the composite grain models from Zubko, Dwek & Arendt (2004) give poor fits.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Spectral Properties of Accretion Disks Around Black Holes II -- Sub-Keplerian Flows With and Without Shocks

Close to a black hole, the density of the sub-Keplerian accreting matter becomes higher compared to a spherical flow due to the presence of a centrifugal barrier independent of whether or not a standing shock actually forms. This hot dense flow intercepts soft photons from a cold Keplerian disk and reprocesses them to form high energy X-rays and gamma rays. We study the spectral properties of various models of accretion disks where a Keplerian disk on the equatorial plane may or may not be flanked by a sub-Keplerian disk and the sub-Keplerian flow may or may not possess standing shocks. From comparison with the spectra, we believe that the observed properties could be explained better when both the components (Keplerian and sub-Keplerian) are simultaneously present close to a black hole, even though the sub-Keplerian halo component may have been produced out of the Keplerian disk itself at larger radii. We are able to understand soft and hard states of black hole candidates, properties of X-ray novae outbursts, and quasi-periodic oscillations of black hole candidates using these two component models. We fit spectra of X-ray novae GS1124-68 and GS2000+25 and satisfactorily reproduce the light curves of these objects.Comment: 15 Latex pages plus 12 figures. Macros included. Astrophysical Journal (In press

Low-frequency gravitational radiation from coalescing massive black hole binaries in hierarchical cosmologies

We compute the expected gravitational wave signal from coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries at the center of galaxies in a hierarchical structure formation scenario in which seed holes of intermediate mass form far up in the dark halo merger tree. The merger history of DM halos and MBHs is followed from z=20 to the present in a LCDM cosmology. MBHs get incorporated through halo mergers into larger and larger structures, sink to the center owing to dynamical friction against the DM background, accrete cold material in the merger remnant, and form MBH binary systems. Stellar dynamical interactions cause the hardening of the binary at large separations, while gravitational wave emission takes over at small radii and leads to the final coalescence of the pair. The integrated emission from inspiraling MBH binaries results in a gravitational wave background (GWB). The characteristic strain spectrum has the standard h_c(f)\propto f^{-2/3} behavior only in the range 1E-9<f<1E-6 Hz. At lower frequencies the orbital decay of MBH binaries is driven by the ejection of background stars, and h_c(f) \propto f. At higher frequencies, f>1E-6 Hz, the strain amplitude is shaped by the convolution of last stable circular orbit emission. We discuss the observability of inspiraling MBH binaries by the planned LISA. Over a 3-year observing period LISA should resolve this GWB into discrete sources, detecting ~60 (~250) individual events above a S/N=5 (S/N=1) confidence level. (Abridged)Comment: 11 pages, 8 figues. Revised version accepted to be published in ApJ Discussion on number counts corrected and expande

The soft X-ray spectrum of PG1211+143

The narrow line QSO PG1211+143 has been a focus of recent attempts to understand the soft excess in AGN, while the 2001 XMM-Newton observation of this luminous AGN also provided evidence for a massive and energetic outflow. Here we consider a physical link between the energetic outflow and the variable soft excess.Comment: to be published in 'Black Holes: from Stars to Galaxies - across the Range of Masses. Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 238, 2006. V.Karas and G.Matt, ed

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Effects of Compton Cooling on the Hydrodynamic and the Spectral Properties of a Two Component Accretion Flow around a Black Hole

We carry out a time dependent numerical simulation where both the hydrodynamics and the radiative transfer are coupled together. We consider a two-component accretion flow in which the Keplerian disk is immersed inside an accreting low angular momentum flow (halo) around a black hole. The injected soft photons from the Keplerian disk are reprocessed by the electrons in the halo. We show that in presence of an axisymmetric soft-photon source, the spherically symmetric Bondi flow losses its symmetry and becomes axisymmetric. The low angular momentum flow was observed to slow down close to the axis and formed a centrifugal barrier which added new features into the spectrum. Using the Monte Carlo method, we generated the radiated spectra as functions of the accretion rates. We find that the transitions from a hard state to a soft state is determined by the mass accretion rates of the disk and the halo. We separate out the signature of the bulk motion Comptonization and discuss its significance. We study how the net spectrum is contributed by photons suffering different number of scatterings and spending different amounts of time inside the Compton cloud. We study the directional dependence of the emitted spectrum as well.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

The X-ray spectrum of a disk illuminated by ions

The X-ray spectrum from a cool disk embedded in an ion supported torus is computed. The interaction of the hot ions with the disk increases the hard X-ray luminosity of the system}. A surface layer of the disk is heated by the protons from the torus. The Comptonized spectrum produced by this layer has a shape that depends only weakly on the incident energy flux and the distance from the accreting compact object. It consists of a `blue bump' of unComptonized soft photons and a flat high energy tail, reminiscent of the observed spectra. The hard tail becomes flatter as the thermalization depth in the cool disk is increased. Further evidence for ion illumination are the Li abundance in the secondaries of low mass X-ray binaries and the 450 keV lines sometimes seen in black-hole transient spectra.Comment: 7p, to appear in Monthly Notice