Abstract
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, launched in 2021 December, enables precision measurements of the energy-dependent polarization of the X-ray emission from stellar mass and ...supermassive black holes. In this paper, we study the impact of the accretion disk geometry on the polarization of the thermal emission of mass-accreting stellar-mass black holes. We present a ray-tracing code that allows us to predict how the X-ray polarization energy spectra change as we dial up the thickness of the accretion disk from a geometrically thin accretion disk to a torus-shaped geometrically thick accretion disk. The results show that thicker disks can produce higher polarization degrees as the thick disk geometries lead to a larger fraction of X-rays reflecting off portions of the disk. We study the observational degeneracies between the disk shape on the one hand and the black hole spin and disk inclination on the other hand. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our studies for black hole spin measurements.
It is commonly assumed that in black hole (BH) accretion disks the angular momenta of the disk and the BH are aligned. However, for a significant fraction of stellar-mass BHs and supermassive BHs, ...the momenta may not be aligned. In such systems, the interplay of disk viscosity and general relativistic frame dragging can cause the disk to warp or break into two (or more) distinct planes; this is called the Bardeen-Petterson effect. We have developed a general relativistic ray-tracing code to find the energy spectra and polarization of warped accretion disks, accounting for the emission from the disk and for photons reflecting one or multiple times off the warped accretion disk segments. We find that polarization angle can be used to give a lower limit on the misalignment angle when a previous measurement of the jet, which is thought be aligned with the BH angular momentum, can be spatially resolved.
Hard X-rays observed in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are thought to originate from the Comptonization of the optical/UV accretion disk photons in a hot corona. Polarization studies of these photons ...can help to constrain the corona geometry and the plasma properties. We have developed a ray-tracing code that simulates the Comptonization of accretion disk photons in coronae of arbitrary shapes, and use it here to study the polarization of the X-ray emission from wedge and spherical coronae. We study the predicted polarization signatures for the fully relativistic and various approximate treatments of the elemental Compton scattering processes. We furthermore use the code to evaluate the impact of nonthermal electrons and cyclo-synchrotron photons on the polarization properties. Finally, we model the NuSTAR observations of the Seyfert I galaxy Mrk 335 and predict the associated polarization signal. Our studies show that X-ray polarimetry missions such as NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer and the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer proposed to ESA will provide valuable new information about the physical properties of the plasma close to the event horizon of AGN black holes.
X-ray studies of stellar mass black holes in X-ray binaries and mass-accreting supermassive black holes in Active Galactic Nuclei have achieved a high degree of maturity and have delivered detailed ...information about the astrophysical sources and the physics of black hole accretion. In this article, I review recent progress made towards using the X-ray observations for testing the “Kerr hypothesis” that the background spacetimes of all astrophysical quasi-stationary black holes are described by the Kerr metric. Although the observations have indeed revealed clear evidence for relativistic effects in strong-field gravity, quantitative tests of the Kerr hypothesis still struggle with theoretical and practical difficulties. In this article, I describe several recently introduced test metrics and review the status of constraining the background spacetimes of mass accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes with these test metrics. The main conclusion of the discussion is that astrophysical uncertainties are large compared to the rather small observational differences between the Kerr and non-Kerr metrics precluding quantitative constraints on deviations from the Kerr metric at this point in time. I conclude with discussing future progress enabled by more detailed numerical simulations and by future X-ray spectroscopy, timing, polarimetry, and interferometry missions.
We present a generally applicable formalism for modeling the emission, absorption, reflection, and reprocessing of radiation by moving plasma streams close to a Kerr black hole. The formalism can be ...used to investigate the observational signatures of a wide range of phenomena, including (i) the reflection of coronal X-ray radiation off plasma plunging from the inner edge of a black hole accretion disk toward the black hole, (ii) the reflection of coronal X-ray emission off the upper layers of a geometrically thick accretion flow, (iii) the illumination of the accretion disk by a corona moving with relativistic velocities toward or away from the accretion disk, and (iv) the emission from a jet forming close to the black hole. After introducing the general relativistic treatment, we show the results for a fast wind forming close to a Kerr black hole. The approach presented here can be used to model X-ray spectral, timing, reverberation, and polarization data.
Lorentz invariance is the fundamental symmetry of Einstein’s theory of special relativity and has been tested to a great level of detail. However, theories of quantum gravity at the Planck scale ...indicate that Lorentz symmetry may be broken at that scale, motivating further tests. While the Planck energy is currently unreachable by experiment, tiny residual effects at attainable energies can become measurable when photons propagate over sufficiently large distances. The Standard-Model extension (SME) is an effective field-theory approach to describe low-energy effects of quantum gravity theories. Lorentz- and CPT-symmetry-violating effects are introduced by adding additional terms to the Standard-Model Lagrangian. These terms can be ordered by the mass dimension of the corresponding operator, and the leading terms of interest have dimension d=5. Effects of these operators are a linear variation of the speed of light with photon energy, and a rotation of the linear polarization of photons quadratic in photon energy, as well as anisotropy. We analyze optical polarization data from 72 active galactic nuclei and GRBs and derive the first set of limits on all 16 coefficients of mass dimension d=5 of the SME photon sector. Our constraints imply a lower limit on the energy scale of quantum gravity of 106 times the Planck energy, severely limiting the phase space for any theory that predicts a rotation of the photon polarization quadratic in energy.
We report on the optimization of the hard X-ray polarimeter X-Calibur for a high-altitude balloon-flight in the focal plane of the InFOCμS X-ray telescope from Fort Sumner (NM) in Fall 2013. ...X-Calibur combines a low-Z scintillator slab to Compton-scatter photons with a high-Z Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detector assembly to photo-absorb the scattered photons. The detector makes use of the fact that polarized photons Compton scatter preferentially perpendicular to the electric field orientation. X-Calibur achieves a high detection efficiency of order unity and reaches a sensitivity close to the best theoretically possible. In this paper, we discuss the optimization of the design of the instrument based on Monte Carlo simulations of polarized and unpolarized X-ray beams and of the most important background components. We calculate the sensitivity of the polarimeter for the upcoming balloon flight from Fort Sumner and for additional longer balloon flights with higher throughput mirrors. We conclude by emphasizing that Compton polarimeters on satellite borne missions can be used down to energies of a few keV.
In this paper we give a brief review of the astrophysics of active galactic nuclei （AGNs）. After a general introduction motivating the study of AGNs, we discuss our present understanding of the inner ...workings of the central engines, most likely accreting black holes with masses between 106 and 10^10M. We highlight recent results concerning the jets （collimated outflows） of AGNs derived from X-ray observations （Chandra） of kpc-scale jets and ~/-ray observations of AGNs （Fermi, Cherenkov telescopes） with jets closely aligned with the lines of sight （blazars）, and discuss tile interpretation of these observations. Subsequently, we summarize our knowledge about the cosmic history of AGN formation and evolution. We conclude with a description of upcoming observational opportunities.
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