Simulations of X-ray spectral/timing properties in a propagation model of variability of accreting black holes

A phenomenological model of X-ray variability of accreting black holes is considered, where the variable emission is attributed to multiple active regions/perturbations moving radially towards the central black hole. The hard X-rays are produced by inverse Compton upscattering of soft photons coming from reprocessing/thermalization of the same hard X-rays. The heating rate of the Comptonizing plasma is assumed to scale with the rate of dissipation of gravitational energy while the supply of soft photons is assumed to diminish towards the center. Two scenarios are considered: (1) an inner hot flow with outer truncated standard accretion disc and (2) an accretion disc with an active corona and a thick hot ionized skin. A variant of the model is also considered, which is compatible with the currently discussed multi-Lorentzian description of power spectral densities of X-ray lightcurves. In the inner hot flow scenario the model can reproduce the observed Fourier frequency resolved spectra observed in X-ray binaries, in particular the properties of the reprocessed component as functions of Fourier frequency. In the accretion disc with ionized skin scenario the reduction of soft photons due to the ionized skin is insufficient to produce the observed characteristics.Comment: 8 pages, MNRAS, replaced with the accepted version, minor changes in formulae in Sec. 3.

Modelling the variability of the Fe K alpha line in accreting black holes

The variability of the Fe K alpha line near 6.5 keV seems to be reduced compared to the variability of the hard X-rays which presumably drive the line emission. This is observed both in active galactic nuclei and galactic black hole binaries. We point out that such reduced variability, as well as lack of coherence between the variations of the line and the continuum, are a natural prediction of a propagation model of variability in the geometry of inner hot accretion flow. We compute detail model predictions of the variability characteristics which could be compared with current and future data. We also point out that the model requires a gradual disappearance of the cold disc, rather than a sharp transition from the cold disc to a hot flow.Comment: 7 pages, MNRAS, accepte

On variability and spectral distortion of the fluorescent iron lines from black-hole accretion discs

We investigate properties of iron fluorescent line arising as a result of illumination of a black hole accretion disc by an X-ray source located above the disc surface. We study in details the light-bending model of variability of the line, extending previous work on the subject. We indicate bending of photon trajectories to the equatorial plane, which is a distinct property of the Kerr metric, as the most feasible effect underlying reduced variability of the line observed in several objects. A model involving an X-ray source with a varying radial distance, located within a few central gravitational radii around a rapidly rotating black hole, close to the disc surface, may explain both the elongated red wing of the line profile and the complex variability pattern observed in MCG--6-30-15 by XMM-Newton. We point out also that illumination by radiation which returns to the disc (following the previous reflection) contributes significantly to formation of the line profile in some cases. As a result of this effect, the line profile always has a pronounced blue peak (which is not observed in the deep minimum state in MCG--6-30-15), unless the reflecting material is absent within the innermost 2--3 gravitational radii.Comment: 24 pages, 22 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Accretion Disk Spectra of the Ultra-luminous X-ray Sources in Nearby Spiral Galaxies and Galactic Superluminal Jet Sources

Ultra-luminous Compact X-ray Sources (ULXs) in nearby spiral galaxies and Galactic superluminal jet sources share the common spectral characteristic that they have unusually high disk temperatures which cannot be explained in the framework of the standard optically thick accretion disk in the Schwarzschild metric. On the other hand, the standard accretion disk around the Kerr black hole might explain the observed high disk temperature, as the inner radius of the Kerr disk gets smaller and the disk temperature can be consequently higher. However, we point out that the observable Kerr disk spectra becomes significantly harder than Schwarzschild disk spectra only when the disk is highly inclined. This is because the emission from the innermost part of the accretion disk is Doppler-boosted for an edge-on Kerr disk, while hardly seen for a face-on disk. The Galactic superluminal jet sources are known to be highly inclined systems, thus their energy spectra may be explained with the standard Kerr disk with known black hole masses. For ULXs, on the other hand, the standard Kerr disk model seems implausible, since it is highly unlikely that their accretion disks are preferentially inclined, and, if edge-on Kerr disk model is applied, the black hole mass becomes unreasonably large (> 300 M_solar). Instead, the slim disk (advection dominated optically thick disk) model is likely to explain the observed super-Eddington luminosities, hard energy spectra, and spectral variations of ULXs. We suggest that ULXs are accreting black holes with a few tens of solar mass, which is not unexpected from the standard stellar evolution scenario, and that their X-ray emission is from the slim disk shining at super-Eddington luminosities.Comment: ApJ, accepte

Simultaneous Chandra and RXTE observations of the nearby bright Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC4945

We analyze recent simultaneous Chandra/RXTE observations of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 4945. The unprecedented spatial resolution of Chandra means we are able to separate the spectra of the nucleus, starburst and superwind regions, while the RXTE data extend the spectrum to higher energies. The extreme absorbing column of $N_H\sim 4\times 10^{24}$ cm$^{-2}$ means that the nucleus is only seen directly above 8--10 keV, while the lower energy spectrum from the nuclear region in Chandra is dominated by reflection. By contrast, the superwind is dominated by emission from hot plasma, but the starburst region contains both hot plasma and reflection signatures. To form a reflected spectrum requires that the starburst region contains clumps of cool, optically thick material, perhaps star forming cores, which are irradiated by 7--10 keV photons from the nucleus. Since photons of this energy are obscured along the line sight then this confirms the result of Madejski et al. (2000) that the extreme absorbtion material is disk-like rather than a torus. However, the IR/optical limits on the lack of high excitation emission lines show that by contrast the lower energy photons from the nucleus are obscured in all directions. We discuss the complex absorption structure revealed by these observations, and propose an an overall source geometry in which the nucleus is completely embedded in material with $N_H\sim 10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$Comment: Accepted in Ap

On the influence of relativistic effects on X-ray variability of accreting black holes

ABSTRACT X-rays produced by compact flares corotating with a Keplerian accretion disc are modulated in time by Doppler effects. We improve on previous calculations of these effects by considering recent models of intrinsic X-ray variability, and we compute the expected strength of the relativistic signal in current data of Seyfert galaxies and black hole binaries. Such signals can clearly be seen in, for example, recent XMM-Newton data from MCG-6-30-15, if indeed the X-rays are produced by corotating flares concentrated toward the inner disc edge around an extreme Kerr black hole. The lack of the signal in the data collected so far gives support to models where the X-ray sources in active galaxies do not follow Keplerian orbits close to the black hole

Modelling the energy dependencies of X-ray quasi-periodic oscillations in accreting compact objects

ABSTRACT We have constructed models of quasi-periodic variability of X-ray emission from accreting compact objects. Assuming a general scenario of a propagation model of variability, with inverse Compton upscatering as the emission mechanism, we have considered a number of cases for the periodic modulation: modulation of the plasma heating rate, cooling rate by external soft photons, and the amplitude of the reprocessed component. We have computed various observational characteristics which can be compared to good quality data. These include Fourier-frequency resolved spectra and results of cross-correlation analysis between light-curves at different energies. Each model of modulation predicts specific observational signatures, which help in identifying the physical processes driving QPO emission in accreting sources