Related papers: Measuring Black Hole Spin using X-ray Reflection S…
Measurements of the angular momentum (spin) of astrophysical black holes are extremely important, as they provide information on the black hole formation and evolution. We present simulated observations of a X-ray binary system with the…
Relativistic X-ray emission lines from the inner accretion disk around black holes are reviewed. Recent observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission-Newton, and Suzaku are revealing these lines to be good…
We discuss the application of simple relativistically-blurred X-ray reflection models to the determination of the spin and the inner radius of the disc in accreting black holes. Observationally, the nature of the corona is uncertain a…
Astrophysical black hole systems are the ideal laboratories for testing Einstein's theory of gravity in the strong field regime. We have recently developed a framework which uses the reflection spectrum of black hole systems to perform…
Future X-ray instrumentation is expected to allow us to significantly improve the constraints derivedfrom the Fe K lines in AGN, such as the black-hole angular momentum (spin) and the inclination angle of the putative accretion disk. We…
The spin of a black hole retains the memory of how the black hole grew, and can be a potent source of energy for powering relativistic jets. To understand the diagnostic power and astrophysical significance of black hole spin, however, we…
Spin of an accreting black hole can be determined by spectroscopy of the emission and absorption features produced in the inner regions of an accretion disc. We discuss the method employing the relativistic line profiles of iron in the…
We investigate the presence of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary signatures and the feasibility of identifying them through X-ray reflection spectra. The X-ray emitting region is modeled as a set of two mini-disks bound to the…
The spin of a black hole (BH) encodes information about its formation and evolution history. Yet the understanding of the distribution of BH spins in X-ray binaries (XBs), of the models used to measure spin, and of their impact on…
The analysis of relativistically broadened X-ray spectral features from the inner accretion disk provides a powerful tool for measuring the spin of supermassive black holes (SMBH) in active galactic nuclei (AGN). However, AGN spectra are…
Any cold, optically-thick matter in the vicinity of an accreting black hole, such as the accretion disk, can intercept and reprocess some fraction of the hard X-ray continuum emission, thereby imprinting atomic features into the observed…
Relativistic reflection features in the X-ray spectra of black hole binaries and AGNs originate from illumination of the inner part of the accretion disk by a hot corona. In the presence of high quality data and with the correct…
In most accreting black-hole systems the copious X-rays commonly observed from the inner-most regions are accompanied by a reflection spectrum. The latter is the signature of energetic photons reprocessed by the optically thick material of…
We present results from a deep Suzaku observation of the black hole in LMC X-1, supplemented by coincident monitoring with RXTE. We identify broad relativistic reflection features in a soft disc-dominated spectrum. A strong and variable…
Iron line emission is common in the X-ray spectra of accreting black holes. When the line emission is broad or variable then it is likely to originate from close to the black hole. X-ray irradiation of the accretion flow by the power-law…
Several AGN and black hole X-ray binaries show a clear very broad iron line which is strong evidence that the black holes are rapidly spinning. Detailed analysis of these objects shows that the emission line is not significantly affected by…
The spins of a number of supermassive and stellar-mass black holes have been measured based on detections of thermal continuum emission and relativistically broadened iron lines in their x-ray spectra. Likewise, quasiperiodic variability…
X-ray irradiation of the accretion disc leads to strong reflection features, which are then broadened and distorted by relativistic effects. We present a detailed, general relativistic approach to model this irradiation for different…
The Galactic black hole candidate MAXI J0637-430 was first discovered by $\textit{MAXI/GSC}$ on 2019 November 02. We study the spectral properties of MAXI J0637-430 by using the archived $\textit{NuSTAR}$ data and $\textit{Swift}$/XRT data.…
In a previous paper, we presented an extension of our reflection model RELXILL_NK to include the finite thickness of the accretion disk following the prescription in Taylor & Reynolds (2018). In this paper, we apply our model to fit the…