Related papers: Radiation Feedback in Hot Accretion-Disk Corona Mo…
Relativistic reflection features in the X-ray spectra of black hole binaries and AGNs are thought to be produced through illumination of a cold accretion disk by a hot corona. In this work, we assume that the corona has the shape of an…
We compute the X-ray spectra produced by non-static coronae atop accretion discs around black holes and neutron stars. The hot corona is radiatively coupled to the underlying disc (the reflector) and generates an X-ray spectrum which is…
The most popular models for the complex phase and time lags in the rapid aperiodic variability of Galactic X-ray binaries are based Comptonization of soft seed photons in a hot corona, where small-scale flares are induced by flares of the…
The energy equilibrium between the corona and the underlying disk in a two-phase accretion flow sets a lower limit on the achievable photon index. A slab corona may not explain the hard state observations of X-ray binaries (XRBs). We…
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…
The X-ray spectra of many active galactic nuclei (AGN) show a soft X-ray excess below 1-2 keV on top of the extrapolated high- energy power law. The origin of this component is uncertain. It could be a signature of relativistically blurred,…
We discuss properties of thermal and hybrid (thermal/non-thermal) electron-positron plasmas in the pair and energy equilibria. Various accretion disc-corona models, recently proposed to explain properties of galactic as well as…
We present an analysis of several high-resolution Chandra grating observations of the X-ray binary pulsar Her X-1. With a total exposure of 170 ks, the observations are separated by years and cover three combinations of orbital and…
In this Thesis, we describe the development of a three-dimensional radiative transfer code using Monte Carlo technique and its application to various astrophysical problems. This code is capable of simulating the radiation spectra coming…
X-ray observations suggest high compactness of coronae in active galactic nuclei as well as in X-ray binaries. The compactness of the source implies a strong radial dependence in the illumination of the accretion disc. This will, for any…
By means of a Monte Carlo code that accounts for Compton scattering and photoabsorption followed by recombination, we have investigated the radiation transfer of Ly alpha, He alpha, and recombination continua photons of H- and He-like C, N,…
We develop a Monte-Carlo code to compute the Compton scattered X-ray flux arising from a hot inner flow which undergoes Lense-Thirring precession. The hot flow intercepts seed photons from an outer truncated thin disk. A fraction of the…
It is believed that the hard X-ray emission in the luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is from the hot corona above the cool accretion disk. However, the formation of the corona is still debated. Liu et al. investigated the spectrum of…
We present the results of a new global radiation transport code coupled to a general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic simulation of an accreting, non-rotating black hole. For the first time, we are able to explain from first principles in…
Several galactic black holes show transitions between spectral states. In this paper we present a unifying radiation transfer model that can fit the spectral data in both states. We fit individual broad-band (from 1 keV up to 4 MeV)…
In the X-ray spectra of AGNs, a noticeable excess of soft X-rays is typically detected beyond the extrapolation of the power-law trend observed between 2-10 keV. In the scenario of warm Comptonization, observations propose a warm corona…
This Thesis describes the basic framework and applications of a relativistic ray-tracing code for analyzing accretion processes around Kerr black holes. We begin in Chapter 1 with a brief historical summary of the major advances in black…
We build a self-consistent model of a warm scattering corona near an accreting black hole in Kerr geometry, in the regime of slow ($\sim 0.01$ Eddington) mass accretion. An iterative Monte Carlo procedure is developed that incorporates…
The correlation observed between monochromatic X-ray and UV luminosities in radiatively-efficient active galactic nuclei (AGN) lacks a clear theoretical explanation despite being used for many applications. Such a correlation, with its…
We present that the broad feature usually observed in X-ray spectra can be explained by a ray-traced emission from a two-slab system containing a dissipative, warm corona on top of an accretion disk in an AGN. Such an accretion flow is…