Related papers: IC emission above a disk
Radiation emitted from an accretion disk around a massive black hole is a widely discussed model for the UV/soft X-ray excess emission observed in the spectra of many AGN. A self-consistent calculation of the structure and the emerging…
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…
We consider two phase accretion disk-corona models for active galactic nuclei and some X-ray binaries. We describe in detail how one can exactly solve the polarized radiative transfer and Comptonization using the iterative scattering…
In an X-ray reflection spectrum, a tail-like spectral feature generated via Compton down-scattering, known as a Compton shoulder (CS), appears at the low-energy side of the iron K$\alpha$ line. Despite its great diagnostic potential, its…
We present a new, more nuanced understanding of non-linear effects in inverse Compton sources. Contrary to what has been heretofore understood, deleterious non-linear effects can arise even at low laser intensities, a regime previously…
We present the properties of accretion disk corona (ADC) models, where the radiation field, the temperature, and the total opacity of the corona are determined self-consistently. We use a non-linear Monte Carlo code to perform the…
We present the results of simultaneous Suzaku and NuSTAR observations of the nearest Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus (LLAGN), M81*. The spectrum is well described by a cut-off power law plus narrow emission lines from Fe K$\alpha$,…
Rebirth of X-ray polarimetric instruments will have a significant impact on our knowledge of compact accreting sources. The properties of inner-accreting regions of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) or X-ray binary systems (XRBs), such as…
We show that the irradiated accretion disk model can account for all the optical and infrared observations of the anomalous X-ray pulsars in the persistent state. Model fits do not constrain the outer disk radii, while placing an upper…
The problem of the anisotropic Inverse Compton scattering between a monochromatic photon beam and relativistic electrons is revisited and formally solved without approximations. Solutions are given for the single scattering with an electron…
X-ray polarimetric missions planned for this decade will significantly enhance our knowledge of compact accreting sources. Observations of the X-ray polarization signal from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) or X-ray binary systems (XRBs) will…
Within the disk-corona model, it is natural to expect that a fraction of reflection photons from the disk are Compton scattered by the hot corona (reflection Comptonization), even if this effect is usually ignored in X-ray reflection…
We review observations and theoretical models of X-ray/gamma-ray spectra of radio-quiet Seyfert galaxies and of Galactic black-hole candidates (in the hard spectral state). The observed spectra share all their basic components: an…
X-ray emission due to inverse-Compton scattering of microwave background photons by electrons in the lobes of powerful radio galaxies has now been seen in a large number of objects. Combining an inverse-Compton model for the lobe X-ray…
The X-ray spectra of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray sources -- those with L > 1 E+40 erg/s -- remain something of a mystery. Spectral roll-over in the 5-10 keV band was originally detected in in the deepest XMM-Newton observations of…
Highly-ionized fast accretion-disk winds have been suggested as an explanation for a variety of observed absorption and emission features in the X-ray spectra of Active Galactic Nuclei. Simple estimates have suggested that these flows may…
The spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of some blazars exhibit an ultraviolet (UV) and/or soft X-ray excess, which can be modelled with different radiation mechanisms. Polarization measurements of the UV/X-ray emission from blazars may…
We present global radiation GRMHD simulations of strongly magnetized accretion onto a spinning, stellar mass black hole at sub-Eddington rates. Using a frequency-dependent Monte Carlo procedure for Compton scattering, we self-consistently…
The Coma cluster of galaxies hosts the brightest radio halo known and has therefore been the target of numerous searches for associated inverse Compton (IC) emission, particularly at hard X-ray energies where the IC signal must eventually…
Radiative processes such as synchrotron radiation and Compton scattering play an important role in astrophysics. Radiative processes are fundamentally stochastic in nature, and the best tools currently used for resolving these processes…