From Thin to Thick: The Impact of X‐Ray Irradiation on Accretion Disks in Active Galactic Nuclei | Zendy

Philip Chang | Zendy; Eliot Quataert | Zendy; Norman Murray | Zendy

AI Assistant Blog Pricing

Home ZAIA Blog

Open Access

From Thin to Thick: The Impact of X‐Ray Irradiation on Accretion Disks in Active Galactic Nuclei

Author(s) -

Philip Chang,

Eliot Quataert,

Norman Murray

Publication year - 2007

Publication title -

the astrophysical journal

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 2.376

H-Index - 489

eISSN - 1538-4357

pISSN - 0004-637X

DOI - 10.1086/517960

Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , opacity , active galactic nucleus , thin disk , accretion (finance) , thick disk , accretion disc , milky way , galaxy , flux (metallurgy) , metallicity , interstellar medium , infrared , astronomy , optics , halo , materials science , metallurgy

We argue that the X-ray and UV flux illuminating the parsec-scale accretiondisk around luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) is super-Eddington withrespect to the local far-infrared dust opacity. The far infrared opacity may belarger than in the interstellar medium of the Milky Way due to a combination ofsupersolar metallicity and the growth of dust grains in the dense accretiondisk. Because of the irradiating flux, the outer accretion disk puffs up with avertical thickness $h\sim R$. This provides a mechanism for generating ageometrically thick obscuring region from an intrinsically thin disk. We findobscuring columns $\sim 10^{22} - 10^{23} {\rm cm}^{-2}$, in reasonableagreement with observations.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ. changes made from suggestion by the refere

The content you want is available to Zendy users.

Already have an account? Click here to sign in.

Having issues? You can contact us here

Accelerating Research