Three-Layered Atmospheric Structure in Accretion Disks Around Stellar-Mass Black Holes

Abstract

Modeling of the x-ray spectra of the Galactic superluminal jet sources GRS 1915+105 and GRO J1655-40 reveal a three-layered atmospheric structure in the inner region of their accretion disks. Above the cold and optically thick disk of a temperature 0.2-0.5 keV, there is a warm layer with a temperature of 1.0-1.5 keV and an optical depth around 10. Sometimes there is also a much hotter, optically thin corona above the warm layer, with a temperature of 100 keV or higher and an optical depth around unity. The structural similarity between the accretion disks and the solar atmosphere suggest that similar physical processes may be operating in these different systems.Comment: 5 fives, 2 figures, 1 table. The online version of the paper in Science may be accessed through http://jet.uah.edu/~zhangsn/papers.htm