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Polarization from a Strongly Magnetized Accretion Disks: Asymptotic Wavelength Behaviour

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We calculate the polarization of radiation from thick accretion disks with vertically averaged global magnetic field. The polarization arises as a result of the radiation scattering by free electrons in magnetized plasma of a disk. We consider as a basic effect the Faraday rotation of polarization plane along the photon propagation in a magnetized disk. The various models of optically thick accretion disk with a vertically averaged magnetic field are considered. The main goal of this paper is to obtain simple asymptotic formulae for the polarization of radiation when the Faraday rotation angle >> 1 at the Thomson optical length ~1. The results of our calculation allows us to estimate the magnetic field magnitude near the marginally stable orbit region of a black hole via the data of polarimetric observations including the expected future X-ray polarimetric observations. The wavelength dependence of polarization is strongly dependent on various models of an accretion disks and thus allows to choose a real model from the polarization data.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0503121,
  title  = {Polarization from a Strongly Magnetized Accretion Disks: Asymptotic Wavelength Behaviour},
  author = {Yu. N. Gnedin and N. A. Silant'ev and P. S. Shternin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0503121},
  year   = {2007}
}

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7 pages