Open AccessX‐ray iron line variability for the model of an orbiting flare above a black hole accretion disc
Author(s) -
Ruszkowski Mateusz
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.02898.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , supermassive black hole , active galactic nucleus , accretion (finance) , flare , light curve , line (geometry) , black hole (networking) , accretion disc , strong gravity , astronomy , general relativity , reverberation mapping , gravitation , classical mechanics , geometry , galaxy , computer network , routing protocol , mathematics , routing (electronic design automation) , computer science , link state routing protocol
The broad X‐ray iron line, detected in many active galactic nuclei, is likely to be produced by fluorescence from the X‐ray‐illuminated central parts of an accretion disc close to a supermassive black hole. The time‐averaged shape of the line can be explained most naturally by a combination of special and general relativistic effects. Such line profiles contain information about the black hole spin and the accretion disc, as well as the geometry of the emitting region, and may help to test general relativity in the strong gravity regime. In this paper we embark on the computation of the temporal response of the line to the illuminating flux. Previous studies concentrated on the calculation of reverberation signatures from static sources illuminating the disc. In this paper we focus on the more physically justified case of flares located above the accretion disc and corotating with it. We compute the time‐dependent iron line, taking into account all general relativistic effects, and show that its shape is of a very complex nature, and we also present light curves accompanying the iron line variability. We suggest that present and future X‐ray satellites like XMM or Constellation‐X may be capable of detecting features present in the computed reverberation maps.