A public code for general relativistic, polarised radiative transfer around spinning black holes

Abstract

Ray tracing radiative transfer is a powerful method for comparing theoretical models of black hole accretion flows and jets with observations. We present a public code, grtrans, for carrying out such calculations in the Kerr metric, including the full treatment of polarised radiative transfer and parallel transport along geodesics. The code is written in Fortran 90 and efficiently parallelises with OpenMP, and the full code and several components have Python interfaces. We describe several tests which are used for verifiying the code, and we compare the results for polarised thin accretion disc and semi-analytic jet problems with those from the literature as examples of its use. Along the way, we provide accurate fitting functions for polarised synchrotron emission and transfer coefficients from thermal and power law distribution functions, and compare results from numerical integration and quadrature solutions of the polarised radiative transfer equations. We also show that all transfer coefficients can play an important role in predicted images and polarisation maps of the Galactic center black hole, Sgr A*, at submillimetre wavelengths.

22 pages, 12 figures, submitted to MNRAS. code available at: github.com/jadexter/grtrans

References in corpus (17)

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• The Submillimeter Bump in Sgr A* from Relativistic MHD Simulations
• Resolved Magnetic-Field Structure and Variability Near the Event Horizon of Sagittarius A*
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• Simulating the Emission and Outflows from Accretion Disks
• A Grid of Relativistic, non-LTE Accretion Disk Models for Spectral Fitting of Black Hole Binaries
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• Light Curves from an MHD Simulation of a Black Hole Accretion Disk
• Where is the Radiation Edge in Magnetized Black Hole Accretion discs?
• A Monte Carlo Code for Relativistic Radiation Transport Around Kerr Black Holes
• GRMHD prediction of coronal variability in accreting black holes
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Cited by in corpus (117)

• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. VIII. Magnetic Field Structure near The Event Horizon
• Detection of orbital motions near the last stable circular orbit of the massive black hole SgrA*
• The Black Hole Accretion Code
• Lensing by Kerr Black Holes
• Observing the Inner Shadow of a Black Hole: A Direct View of the Event Horizon
• Two-temperature, Magnetically Arrested Disc simulations of the jet from the supermassive black hole in M87
• The role of electron heating physics in images and variability of the Galactic Centre black hole Sagittarius A*
• Universal Polarimetric Signatures of the Black Hole Photon Ring
• Sgr A* near-infrared flares from reconnection events in a magnetically arrested disc
• Ab Initio Horizon-Scale Simulations of Magnetically Arrested Accretion in Sagittarius A* Fed by Stellar Winds
• Super-resolution Full Polarimetric Imaging for Radio Interferometry with Sparse Modeling
• Faraday rotation in GRMHD simulations of the jet launching zone of M87
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. IX. Detection of Near-horizon Circular Polarization
• Polarized Image of Equatorial Emission in the Kerr Geometry
• RAPTOR I: Time-dependent radiative transfer in arbitrary spacetimes
• The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS) - What is causing Mrk1018's return to the shadows after 30 years?
• A parameter survey of Sgr A* radiative models from GRMHD simulations with self-consistent electron heating
• Dynamically important magnetic fields near the event horizon of Sgr A*
• Evolving Nonthermal Electrons in Simulations of Black Hole Accretion
• The impact of Faraday effects on polarized black hole images of Sagittarius A*
• Radiation from rapidly rotating oblate neutron stars
• ALMA Observations of the Terahertz Spectrum of Sagittarius A*
• General purpose ray-tracing and polarized radiative transfer in General Relativity
• Jets, disc-winds and oscillations in general relativistic, magnetically driven flows around black hole
• Effect of Electromagnetic Interaction on Galactic Center Flare Components
• The Accretion flow in M87 is really MAD
• Decomposing the Internal Faraday Rotation of Black Hole Accretion Flows
• Black Hole Magnetic Fields and Their Imprint on Circular Polarization Images
• Probing the innermost accretion flow geometry of Sgr A* with Event Horizon Telescope
• Polarized image of a rotating black hole in Scalar-Tensor-Vector-Gravity theory
• Black Hole Polarimetry I: A Signature of Electromagnetic Energy Extraction
• RAPTOR II: Polarized radiative transfer in curved spacetime
• Generalized, energy-conserving numerical simulations of particles in general relativity. II. Test particles in electromagnetic fields and GRMHD
• Unraveling circular polarimetric images of magnetically arrested accretion flows near event horizon of a black hole
• A Detection of Sgr A* in the far infrared
• Multi-frequency Black Hole Imaging for the Next-Generation Event Horizon Telescope
• The Black Hole Explorer: Photon Ring Science, Detection and Shape Measurement
• Observational Signatures of Frame Dragging in Strong Gravity
• GRMHD Simulations and Modeling for Jet Formation and Acceleration Region in AGNs
• Accurate analytic formula for light bending in Schwarzschild metric
• Observing supermassive black holes in virtual reality
• The Effects of Tilt on the Images of Black Hole Accretion Flows
• Scale-invariant radio jets and varying black hole spin
• Radiative transfer with POLARIS. II.: Modeling of synthetic Galactic synchrotron observations
• The impact of non-thermal electrons on event horizon scale images and spectra of Sgr A*
• Modelling the polarised emission from black holes on event horizon-scales
• Using Machine Learning to Link Black Hole Accretion Flows with Spatially Resolved Polarimetric Observables
• Positron Effects on Polarized Images and Spectra from Jet and Accretion Flow Models of M87* and Sgr A*
• Pulsar timing in extreme mass ratio binaries: a general relativistic approach
• The intrinsic structure of Sagittarius A* at 1.3 cm and 7 mm
• Updated Transfer Coefficients for Magnetized Plasmas
• Polarized image of an equatorial emitting ring around a 4D Gauss-Bonnet black hole
• Comparison of Polarized Radiative Transfer Codes used by the EHT Collaboration
• Image of the Kerr-Newman black hole surrounded by a thin accretion disk
• GRay2: A General Purpose Geodesic Integrator for Kerr Spacetimes
• Determining the Composition of Relativistic Jets from Polarization Maps
• Polarized image of a rotating black hole surrounded by a cold dark matter halo
• Relative depolarization of the black hole photon ring in GRMHD models of Sgr A* and M87*
• A "coronal-mass-ejection'' model for flares in Sagittarius A*
• A Jet-Bases Emission Model of the EHT 2017 Image of M87*
• Polarization images of accretion flow around supermassive black holes: imprints of toroidal field structure
• Sparse interferometric Stokes imaging under polarization constraint (Polarized SARA)
• Polarization Imaging of M87 Jets by General Relativistic Radiative Transfer Calculation based on GRMHD Simulations
• General relativistic polarized radiative transfer with inverse Compton scatterings
• The Role of Adaptive Ray Tracing in Analyzing Black Hole Structure
• Covariant Radiative Transfer for Black Hole Spacetimes
• Signatures of Black Hole Spin and Plasma Acceleration in Jet Polarimetry
• Survey of Radiative, Two-Temperature Magnetically Arrested Simulations of the Black Hole M87* I: Turbulent Electron Heating
• The Relationship Between Simulated Sub-Millimeter and Near-Infrared Images of Sagittarius A* from a Magnetically Arrested Black Hole Accretion Flow
• Probing Plasma Physics with Spectral Index Maps of Accreting Black Holes on Event Horizon Scales
• Blacklight: A General-Relativistic Ray-Tracing and Analysis Tool
• What is the Hidden Depolarization Mechanism in Low Luminosity AGN?
• Hybrid GRMHD and Force-Free Simulations of Black Hole Accretion
• Covariant polarized radiative transfer on cosmological scales for investigating large-scale magnetic field structures
• RAIKOU: A General Relativistic, Multi-wavelength Radiative Transfer Code
• Time Domain Filtering of Resolved Images of Sgr A*
• Energy Extraction from a Black Hole by a Strongly Magnetized Thin Accretion Disk
• Simulations of recoiling black holes: adaptive mesh refinement and radiative transfer
• Numerical Evaluation of the Relativistic Magnetized Plasma Susceptibility Tensor and Faraday Rotation Coefficients
• Images and Spectra of Time Dependent Two Component Advective Flow in Presence of Outflows
• Multi-Frequency Models of Black Hole Photon Rings from Low-Luminosity Accretion Disks
• Observational Signatures of Black Hole Accretion: Rotating vs. Spherical Flows with Tilted Magnetic Fields
• Forward Ray Tracing and Hot Spots in Kerr Spacetime
• Illuminating Black Hole Shadow with Dark Matter Annihilation
• The Effects of Tilt on the Time Variability of Millimeter and Infrared Emission from Sagittarius A*
• Survey of Non-thermal Electron around Supermassive Black Holes through Polarization Flips
• Electromagnetic signatures of strong-field gravity from accreting black holes
• Matter density distribution of general relativistic highly magnetized jets driven by black holes
• FANTASY: User-Friendly Symplectic Geodesic Integrator for Arbitrary Metrics with Automatic Differentiation
• A New Fast Monte Carlo Code for Solving Radiative Transfer Equations based on Neumann Solution
• Observational signatures from higher-order images of moving hotspots in accretion disks
• Viscous torque in turbulent magnetized AGN accretion disks and its effects on EMRI's gravitational waves
• Approaching the black hole by numerical simulations
• The Effects of Resolution on Black Hole Accretion Simulations of Jets
• Classification of a black hole spin out of its shadow using support vector machines
• Generally Applicable Formalism for Modeling the Observable Signatures of Inflows, Outflows, and Moving Coronal Plasma Close to Kerr Black Holes
• Impact of the nonthermal electron radiation effects on the horizon scale image structure of Sagittarius A*
• Shadow and thin accretion disk around Ayón-Beato-García black hole coupled with cloud of strings
• Investigating non-Keplerian motion in flare events with astrometric data
• Ray-tracing and polarized radiative transfer in General Relativity
• Non-thermal Synchrotron Emission and Polarization Signatures during Black Hole Flux Eruptions
• Observational properties of a Schwarzschild black hole surrounded by a Dehnen-type dark matter halo
• Synthetic gravitational lens image of the Sagittarius A${}^{\ast }$ black hole with a thin disk model
• GALLIFRAY -- A geometric modeling and parameter estimation framework for black hole images using bayesian techniques
• Gravitational Faraday rotation of light propagation in the Kerr-Newman-Taub-NUT space-time
• Thin accretion disk around Schwarzschild-like black hole in bumblebee gravity
• Characterization of black hole accretion through image moment invariants
• From electrons to Janskys: Full stokes polarized radiative transfer in 3D relativistic particle-in-cell jet simulations
• General relativistic radiation transport: Implications for VLBI/EHT observations of AGN discs, winds and jets
• Radiative energy from a reconnection region around massive black hole
• High Resolution Imaging of a Black Hole Shadow with Millimetron Orbit around Lagrange Point L2
• Remarkable correspondence of Sagittarius A* submillimeter variability with a stellar-wind-fed accretion flow model
• Chorus: Optimizing Synchrotron Transfer Coefficients with Weighted Sums
• Nonuniform Particle Injection into Black Hole Jets by Radiative Magnetic Reconnection
• Polarization Signatures of Rotating Black Holes in Perfect Fluid Dark Matter Spacetimes
• PATOKA: Simulating Electromagnetic Observables of Black Hole Accretion
• Investigating the Disk-Jet Structure in M87 through Flux Separation in the Linear and Circular Polarization Images