Models of Comptonization

After a rapid introduction about the models of comptonization, we present some simulations that underlines the expected capabilities of Simbol-X to constrain the presence of this process in objects like AGNs or XRB.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, invited talk at 'Simbol-X: the hard X-ray universe in focus', Bologna (Italy), 14-16 May, 2007. To appear in Memorie della SAI

Variation of bulk Lorentz factor in AGN jets due to Compton rocket in a complex photon field

Radio-loud active galactic nuclei are among the most powerful objects in the universe. In these objects, most of the emission comes from relativistic jets getting their power from the accretion of matter onto supermassive black holes. However, despite the number of studies, a jet's acceleration to relativistic speeds is still poorly understood. It is widely known that jets contain relativistic particles that emit radiation through several physical processes, one of them being the inverse Compton scattering of photons coming from external sources. In the case of a plasma composed of electrons and positrons continuously heated by the turbulence, inverse Compton scattering can lead to relativistic bulk motions through the Compton rocket effect. We investigate this process and compute the resulting bulk Lorentz factor in the complex photon field of an AGN composed of several external photon sources. We consider various sources here: the accretion disk, the dusty torus, and the broad line region. We take their geometry and anisotropy carefully into account in order to numerically compute the bulk Lorentz factor of the jet at every altitude. The study, made for a broad range of parameters, shows interesting and unexpected behaviors of the bulk Lorentz factor, exhibiting acceleration and deceleration zones in the jet. We investigate the patterns of the bulk Lorentz factor along the jet depending on the source sizes and on the observation angle and we finally show that these patterns can induce variability in the AGN emission with timescales going from hours to months.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures, accepted to A&

Time dependent modelisation of TeV blazars by a stratified jet model

We present a new time-dependent inhomogeneous jet model of non-thermal blazar emission. Ultra-relativistic leptons are injected at the base of a jet and propagate along it. We assume continuous reacceleration and cooling, producing a relativistic quasi-maxwellian (or "pile-up") particle energy distribution. The synchrotron and Synchrotron-Self Compton jet emissivity are computed at each altitude. Klein-Nishina effects as well as intrinsic gamma-gamma absorption are included in the computation. Due to the pair production optical depth, considerable particle density enhancement can occur, particularly during flaring states.Time-dependent jet emission can be computed by varying the particle injection, but due to the sensitivity of pair production process, only small variations of the injected density are required during the flares. The stratification of the jet emission, together with a pile-up distribution, allows significantly lower bulk Lorentz factors, compared to one-zone models. Applying this model to the case of PKS 2155-304 and its big TeV flare observed in 2006, we can reproduce simultaneously the average broad band spectrum of this source from radio to TeV, as well as TeV light curve of the flare with bulk Lorentz factor lower than 15

Luminosity-dependent unification of Active Galactic Nuclei and the X-ray Baldwin effect

The existence of an anti-correlation between the equivalent width (EW) of the narrow core of the iron Kalpha line and the luminosity of the continuum (i.e. the X-ray Baldwin effect) in type-I active galactic nuclei has been confirmed over the last years by several studies carried out with XMM-Newton, Chandra and Suzaku. However, so far no general consensus on the origin of this trend has been reached. Several works have proposed the decrease of the covering factor of the molecular torus with the luminosity (in the framework of the luminosity-dependent unification models) as a possible explanation for the X-ray Baldwin effect. Using the fraction of obscured sources measured by recent X-ray and IR surveys as a proxy of the half-opening angle of the torus, and the recent Monte-Carlo simulations of the X-ray radiation reprocessed by a structure with a spherical-toroidal geometry by Ikeda et al. (2009) and Brightman & Nandra (2011), we test the hypothesis that the X-ray Baldwin effect is related to the decrease of the half-opening angle of the torus with the luminosity. Simulating the spectra of an unabsorbed population with a luminosity-dependent covering factor of the torus as predicted by recent X-ray surveys, we find that this mechanism is able to explain the observed X-ray Baldwin effect. Fitting the simulated data with a log-linear L_{2-10keV}-EW relation, we found that in the Seyfert regime (L_{2-10keV}< 10^44.2 erg s^-1) luminosity-dependent unification produces a slope consistent with the observations for average values of the equatorial column densities of the torus of log N_H^T > 23.1. In the quasar regime (L_{2-10 keV}> 10^44.2 erg s^-1) a decrease of the covering factor of the torus with the luminosity slower than that observed in the Seyfert regime (as found by recent hard X-ray surveys) is able to reproduce the observations for 23.2 < log N_H^T < 24.2.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, 1 table. Accepted for pubblication in A&

Jet launching and field advection in quasi-Keplerian discs

The fact that self-confined jets are observed around black holes, neutron stars and young forming stars points to a jet launching mechanism independent of the nature of the central object, namely the surrounding accretion disc. The properties of Jet Emitting Discs (JEDs) are briefly reviewed. It is argued that, within an alpha prescription for the turbulence (anomalous viscosity and diffusivity), the steady-state problem has been solved. Conditions for launching jets are very stringent and require a large scale magnetic field $B_z$ close to equipartition with the total (gas and radiation) pressure. The total power feeding the jets decreases with the disc thickness: fat ADAF-like structures with $h\sim r$ cannot drive super-Alfv\'enic jets. However, there exist also hot, optically thin JED solutions that would be observationally very similar to ADAFs. Finally, it is argued that variations in the large scale magnetic $B_z$ field is the second parameter required to explain hysteresis cycles seen in LMXBs (the first one would be $\dot M_a$).Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of IAU 275 "Jets at all scales" (Gustavo E. Romero, Rashid A. Sunyaev and Tomaso Belloni, eds

The influence of collimation on the appearance of relativistic jets

The question of the collimation of relativistic jets is the subject of a lively debate in the community. We numerically compute the apparent velocity and the Doppler factor of a non homokinetic jet using different velocity profile, to study the effect of collimation on the appearance of relativistic jets (apparent velocity and Doppler factor). We argue that if the motion is relativistic, the high superluminal velocities are possible only if the geometrical collimation is smaller than the relativistic beaming angle $\gamma^{-1}$. In the opposite case, the apparent image will be dominated by the part of the jet traveling directly towards the observer resulting in a smaller apparent velocity. Furthermore, getting rid of the homokinetic hypothesis yields a complex relation between the observing angle and the Doppler factor, resulting in important consequences for the numerical computation of AGN population and unification scheme model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. To appear in Proceedings of IAU Symposium 275 "Jets at all Scales", 13-17 September 2010, Buenos Aires, Argentin