Iron line profiles including emission from within the innermost stable orbit of a black hole accretion disc

Reynolds & Begelman (1997) have recently proposed a model in which the broad and extremely redshifted iron line seen during a deep minimum of the light curve of the Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG-6-30-15 originates from matter spiralling into a Schwarzschild black hole, contrary to previous claims that the black hole may be spinning rapidly (Iwasawa et al 1996; Dabrowski et al 1997). Here we calculate in detail the X-ray spectrum produced by their model using the full reflected continuum emission, including absorption features. This calculation takes into account the doppler and relativistic effects. For the range of parameters we consider, we find that the spectrum should show a large photoelectric absorption edge of iron, which is not seen in the data. The absorption edge is a consequence of the line emitting matter within the innermost stable orbit being highly ionized, and is largely independent of the parameters chosen for their model. If we restrict our attention to the 3-10 keV band we may effectively remove this absorption edge by fitting a steeper power law, but this results in a significant underprediction of the 0.4-0.5 keV flux. We conclude that the data on MCG-6-30-15 are more consistent with the Kerr than the Schwarzschild model.Comment: 5 pages with 5 postscript figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Construction of pseudo-bosons systems

In a recent paper we have considered an explicit model of a PT-symmetric system based on a modification of the canonical commutation relation. We have introduced the so-called {\em pseudo-bosons}, and the role of Riesz bases in this context has been analyzed in detail. In this paper we consider a general construction of pseudo-bosons based on an explicit {coordinate-representation}, extending what is usually done in ordinary supersymmetric quantum mechanics. We also discuss an example arising from a linear modification of standard creation and annihilation operators, and we analyze its connection with coherent states.Comment: In press in Journal of Mathematical Physic

An improved soft X-ray photoionization detector

Photoionization detector with an alumina shell, a beryllium foil window, and a xenon gas fill measures small incident photon fluxes from soft X rays. It has high spectral selectivity and quantum efficiencies, and a long shelf life. It minimizes electrical leakage and recontamination, and will hold a high vacuum