Effects of Compton cooling on the hydrodynamic and the spectral properties of a two-component accretion flow around a black hole (original) (raw)
Related papers
We wish to investigate the effects of cooling of the Compton cloud on the outflow formation rate in an accretion disk around a black hole. We carry out a time dependent numerical simulation where both the hydrodynamics and the radiative transfer processes are coupled together. We consider a two-component accretion flow in which the Keplerian disk is immersed into an accreting low-angular momentum flow (halo) around a black hole. The soft photons which originate from the Keplerian disk are inverse-Comptonized by the electrons in the halo and the region between the centrifugal pressure supported shocks and the horizon. We run several cases by changing the rate of the Keplerian disk and see the effects on the shock location and properties of the outflow and the spectrum. We show that as a result of Comptonization of the Compton cloud, the cloud becomes cooler with the increase in the Keplerian disk rate. As the resultant thermal pressure is reduced, the post-shock region collapses and the outflow rate is also reduced. Since the hard radiation is produced from the post-shock region, and the spectral slope increases with the reduction of the electron temperature, the cooling produces softer spectrum. We thus find a direct correlation between the spectral states and the outflow rates of an accreting black hole.
Hydrodynamic simulations of viscous accretion flows around black holes
2011
We carry out a time dependent numerical simulation where both the hydrodynamics and the radiative transfer are coupled together. We consider a two-component accretion flow in which the Keplerian disk is immersed inside an accreting low angular momentum flow (halo) around a black hole. The injected soft photons from the Keplerian disk are reprocessed by the electrons in the halo. We show that in presence of an axisymmetric soft-photon source, the spherically symmetric Bondi flow losses its symmetry and becomes axisymmetric. The low angular momentum flow was observed to slow down close to the axis and formed a centrifugal barrier which added new features into the spectrum. Using the Monte Carlo method, we generated the radiated spectra as functions of the accretion rates. We find that the transitions from a hard state to a soft state is determined by the mass accretion rates of the disk and the halo. We separate out the signature of the bulk motion Comptonization and discuss its significance. We study how the net spectrum is contributed by photons suffering different number of scatterings and spending different amounts of time inside the Compton cloud. We study the directional dependence of the emitted spectrum as well.
2012
A black hole accretion may have both the Keplerian and the sub-Keplerian components. In the so-called Chakrabarti-Titarchuk scenario, the Keplerian component supplies low energy (soft) photons while the sub-Keplerian component supplies hot electrons which exchange their energy with the soft photons through Comptonization or inverse Comp- tonization processes. In the sub-Keplerian component, a shock is generally produced due to the centrifugal force. The post-shock region is known as the CENtrifugal pressure- supported BOundary Layer (CENBOL). In this paper, we compute the effects of the thermal and the bulk motion Comptonization on the soft photons and study the emerg- ing spectrum when the converging inflow and the diverging outflow (generated from the CENBOL) are simultaneously present. From the strength of the shock, we calculate the percentage of matter being carried away by the outflow and determine how the emerg- ing spectrum depends on the outflow rate. The interplay between the up-scattering and down-scattering effects determines the effective shape of the emerging spectrum.
A black hole accretion may have both the Keplerian and the sub-Keplerian component. In the so-called Chakrabarti–Titarchuk scenario, the Keplerian component supplies low-energy (soft) photons while the sub-Keplerian component supplies hot electrons which exchange their energy with the soft photons through Comptonization or inverse Comptonization processes. In the sub-Keplerian component, a shock is generally produced due to the centrifugal force. The postshock region is known as the CENtrifugal pressure–supported BOundary Layer (CENBOL). In this paper, we compute the effects of the thermal and the bulk motion Comptonization on the soft photons emitted from a Keplerian disk by the CENBOL, the preshock sub-Keplerian disk and the outflowing jet. We study the emerging spectrum when the converging inflow and the diverging outflow (generated from the CENBOL) are simultaneously present. From the strength of the shock, we calculate the percentage of matter being carried away by the outflow and determine how the emerging spectrum depends on the outflow rate. The preshock sub-Keplerian flow is also found to Comptonize the soft photons significantly. The interplay between the up-scattering and down-scattering effects determines the effective shape of the emerging spectrum. By simulating several cases with various inflow parameters, we conclude that whether the preshock flow, or the postshock CENBOL or the emerging jet is dominant in shaping the emerging spectrum depends strongly on the geometry of the flow and the strength of the shock in the sub-Keplerian flow.
Dynamical Comptonization in spherical flows: black hole accretion and stellar winds
Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society, 1996
The transport of photons in steady, spherical, scattering flows is investigated. The moment equations are solved analytically for accretion onto a Schwarzschild black hole, taking into full account relativistic effects. We show that the emergent radiation spectrum is a power law at high frequencies with a spectral index smaller (harder spectrum) than in the non--relativistic case. Radiative transfer in an expanding envelope is also analyzed. We find that adiabatic expansion produces a drift of injected monochromatic photons towards lower frequencies and the formation of a power--law, low--energy tail with spectral index −3-3−3.
Monte Carlo simulations of global Compton cooling in inner regions of hot accretion flows
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2010
Hot accretion flows such as advection-dominated accretion flows are generally optically thin in the radial direction. Thus photons generated at some radii can cool or heat electrons at other radii via Compton scattering. Such global Compton scattering has previously been shown to be important for the dynamics of accretion flows. Here, we extend previous treatments of this problem by using accurate global general relativistic Monte Carlo simulations. We focus on an inner region of the accretion flow (R ≤ 600R g ), for which we obtain a global self-consistent solution. As compared to the initial, not self-consistent solution, the final solution has both the cooling rate and the electron temperature significantly reduced at radii > ∼ 10 gravitational radii. On the other hand, the radiation spectrum of the self-consistent solution has the shape similar to that of the initial iteration, except for the high-energy cut-off being at an energy lower by a factor of ∼ 2 and the bolometric luminosity decreased by a factor of ∼ 2. We also compare the global Compton scattering model with local models in spherical and slab geometry. We find that the slab model approximates the global model significantly better than the spherical one. Still, neither local model gives a good approximation to the radial profile of the cooling rate, and the differences can be up to two orders of magnitude. The local slab model underestimates the cooling rate at outer regions whereas it overestimates that rate at inner regions. We compare our modelling results to observed hard-state spectra of black-hole binaries and find an overall good agreement provided any disc outflow is weak. We find that general-relativistic effects in flows which dynamics is modified by global Comptonization is crucial in approaching this agreement.
The role of Compton heating on radiation-regulated accretion on to black holes
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
We investigate the role of Compton heating in radiation-regulated accretion on to black holes from a neutral dense medium using 1D radiation-hydrodynamic simulations. We focus on the relative effects of Compton-heating and photo-heating as a function of the spectral slope {\alpha}, assuming a power-law spectrum in the energy range of 13.6 eV--100 keV. While Compton heating is dominant only close to the black hole, it can reduce the accretion rate to 0.1 % ($l \propto \dot{m}^2$ model)--0.01 % ($l \propto \dot{m}$ model) of the Bondi accretion rate when the BH radiation is hard ({\alpha} ~ 1), where lll and dotm\dot{m}dotm are the luminosity and accretion rate normalised by Eddington rates, respectively. The oscillatory behaviour otherwise typically seen in simulations with {\alpha} > 1, become suppressed when {\alpha} ~ 1 only for the lproptodotml \propto \dot{m}lproptodotm model. The relative importance of the Compton heating over photo-heating decreases and the oscillatory behaviour becomes stronger as ...
X‐Ray Spectral Formation in a Converging Fluid Flow: Spherical Accretion into Black Holes
The Astrophysical Journal, 1997
We study Compton upscattering of low-frequency photons in a converging flow of thermal plasma. The photons escape diffusively and electron scattering is the dominant source of opacity. We solve numerically and approximately analytically the equation of radiative transfer in the case of spherical, steady state accretion into black holes. Unlike previous work on this subject, we consider the inner boundary at a finite radius and this has a significant effect on the emergent spectrum. It is shown that the bulk motion of the converging flow is more efficient in upscattering photons than thermal Comptonization, provided that the electron temperature in the flow is of order a few keV or less. In this case, the spectrum observed at infinity consists of a soft component coming from those input photons which escaped after a few scatterings without any significant energy change and of a power law which extends to high energies and is made of those photons which underwent significant upscattering. The luminosity of the power law is relatively small compared to that of the soft component. The more reflective the inner boundary is, the flatter the power-law spectrum becomes. The spectral energy power-law index for black-hole accretion is always higher than 1 and it is approximately 1.5 for high accretion rates. This result tempts us to say that bulk motion Comptonization might be the mechanism behind the power-law spectra seen in black-hole X-ray sources.
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2007
Context: Numerical simulations of MHD accretion flows in the vicinity of a supermasssive black hole provide important insights to the problem of why and how systems -such as the Galactic Center -are underluminous and variable. In particular, the simulations indicate that low angular momentum accretion flow is strongly variable both quantitatively and qualitatively. This variability and a relatively low mass accretion rate are caused by an interplay between a rotationally supported torus, its outflow and a nearly non-rotating inflow. Aims: To access applicability of such flows to real objects, we examine the dynamical MHD studies with computations of the time dependent radiation spectra predicted by the simulations. Methods: We calculate synthetic broadband spectra of accretion flows using Monte Carlo techniques. Our method computes the plasma electron temperature allowing for the pressure work, ion-electron coupling, radiative cooling, and advection. The radiation spectra are calculated by taking into account thermal synchrotron and bremsstrahlung radiation, self absorption, and Comptonization processes. We also explore effects of non-thermal electrons. We apply this method to calculate spectra predicted by the time-dependent model of an axisymmetic MHD flow accreting onto a black hole presented by Proga and Begelman. Results: Our calculations show that variability in an accretion flow is not always reflected in the corresponding spectra, at least not in all wavelengths. We find no one-to-one correspondence between the accretion state and the predicted spectrum. For example, we find that two states with different properties -such as the geometry and accretion rate -could have relatively similar spectra. However, we also find two very different states with very different spectra. Existence of nonthermal radiation may be necessary to explain X-rays flaring because thermal bremsstrahlung, that dominates X-ray emission, is produced at relatively large radii where the flow changes are small and slow.
Computation of outflow rates from accretion disks around black holes
Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2001
We self-consistently estimate the outflow rate from the accretion rates of an accretion disk around a black hole in which both the Keplerian and the sub-Keplerian matter flows simultaneously. While Keplerian matter supplies soft-photons, hot sub-Keplerian matter supplies thermal electrons. The temperature of the hot electrons is decided by the degree of inverse Comptonization of the soft photons. If we consider only thermally-driven flows from the centrifugal pressure-supported boundary layer around a black hole, we find that when the thermal electrons are cooled down, either because of the absence of the boundary layer (low compression ratio), or when the surface of the boundary layer is formed very far away, the outflow rate is negligible. For an intermediate size of this boundary layer the outflow rate is maximal. Since the temperature of the thermal electrons also decides the spectral state of a black hole, we predict that the outflow rate should be directly related to the spectral state.