Related papers: Testing models of X-ray reflection from irradiated…
Reflection of X-rays from cool material around a black hole is one of the few observational diagnostics of the accretion flow geometry. Models of this reflected spectrum generally assume that the accretion disk can be characterized by…
Straight-forward models of X-ray reflection in the inner region of accretion discs predict that primary X-ray flux and the flux reflected off the surface of the disc should vary together, albeit a short light travel time delay. Most of the…
X-ray illumination of accretion disks is an invaluable diagnostic of the structure of these disks because of the associated iron K$\alpha$ emission. Here we point out that the resulting reflected spectra depend very sensitively on the…
Accretion around black holes is very often characterized by distinctive X-ray reflection features (mostly, iron inner-shell transitions), which arise due to the primary radiation being reprocessed by a dense and relatively colder medium,…
Accreting black holes show characteristic 'reflection' features in their X-ray spectra, including the iron K$\alpha$ fluorescence line, which result from X-rays radiated by a compact central corona being reprocessed in the accretion disc…
We apply a reflection-based model to the best available XMM-Newton spectra of X-ray bright UltraLuminous X-ray (ULX) sources (NGC 1313 X-1, NGC 1313 X-2, M 81 X-6, Holmberg IX X-1, NGC 5408 X-1 and Holmberg II X-1). A spectral drop is…
X-ray reflection spectroscopy is currently one of the leading techniques for studying the inner part of accretion disks around black holes, measuring black hole spins, and even testing fundamental physics in strong gravitational fields.…
We analyse all available observations of GX 339--4 by XMM-Newton in the hard spectral state. We jointly fit the spectral data by Comptonization and the currently best reflection code, relxill. We consider in detail a contribution from a…
We present full disk X-ray reflection spectra for two currently popular accretion flow geometries for AGN -- the lamppost model frequently used to discuss the iron line reverberation in AGN, and the model where the X-rays are produced in…
We have simultaneously fit Chandra and RXTE spectra of the Galactic black hole XTE J1118+480 with three models for X-ray reflection. We explored a range of accretion disc ionizations (log(xi)=1-4; xi=L_X/nR^{2}) and iron abundances…
We investigate accretion disk winds commonly observed in galactic black hole (BH) X-ray binaries (XRB), which manifest as blueshifted absorption features in X-ray spectra. We model these winds as ideal magnetohydrodynamic outflows of hot…
The magnetic flare avalanches model of Poutanen & Fabian for X-ray variability of accreting black holes is combined with computations of vertical structure of illuminated accretion discs in hydrostatic equilibrium. The latter predict the…
Disc spectra from highly luminous black hole binaries are observed to be rather simple, despite theoretical predictions to the contrary. We collate the disc-dominated spectra from multiple observations of 10 separate sources, and show that…
(abridged) We present a detailed spectral analysis of the first observation of the Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG-6-30-15 by the European Photon Imaging Camera on board the XMM-Newton observatory, together with contemporaneous data from the…
The degree to which the thin accretion disks of black hole X-ray binaries are truncated during hard spectral states remains a contentious open question in black hole astrophysics. During its singular observed outburst in…
The models that seek to explain the reflection spectrum in black hole binaries usually invoke a point-like primary source of hard X-rays. This source illuminates the accretion disk and gives rise to the discrete (lines) and…
Returning radiation is thought to play a key role in disk illumination of black hole X-ray binaries in the high-soft state, yet it has not been fully incorporated into XSPEC reflection models. We present a new table model for reflection…
We have calculated the relativistic reflection component of the X-ray spectra of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei (AGN). Our calculations have shown that the spectra can be significantly modified by the motion of the accretion flow…
The hard X-rays in Cyg X-1 and similar black hole sources are possibly produced in an active corona atop an accretion disk. We suggest that the observed weakness of X-ray reflection from the disk is due to bulk motion of the emitting hot…
The models currently used for the analysis of the reflection spectra of black holes usually assume a disk with constant ionization and electron density. However, there is some debate on the impact of these assumptions on the estimate of the…