The X-ray Polarization of the Accretion Disk Coronae of Active Galactic Nuclei

Abstract

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 shape, 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 non-thermal 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 (IXPE) and the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer (XIPE) proposed to ESA will provide valuable new information about the physical properties of the plasma close to the event horizon of AGN black holes.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal, 38 pages, 16 figures, and 1 tables

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• Polarization constraints on the X-ray corona in Seyfert Galaxies: MCG-05-23-16
• Prospects for differentiating extended coronal geometries in AGNs with the IXPE mission
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• MoCA: A Monte Carlo code for Comptonisation in Astrophysics. I. Description of the code and first results
• New Constraints on the Spin of the Black Hole Cygnus X-1 and the Physical Properties of its Accretion Disk Corona
• Difficulties of Quantitative Tests of the Kerr-Hypothesis with X-Ray Observations of Mass Accreting Black Holes
• The INTEGRAL view on Black Hole X-ray Binaries
• The first simultaneous X-ray broad-band view of Mrk 110 with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR
• Spectral and polarization properties of reflected X-ray emission from black hole accretion discs
• A Southern sky search for repeating Fast Radio Bursts using the Australian SKA Pathfinder
• The Role of Adaptive Ray Tracing in Analyzing Black Hole Structure
• Bulk Motions in the Black Hole Jet Sheath as a Candidate for the Comptonizing Corona
• Spectral and polarization properties of reflected X-ray emission from black-hole accretion discs for a distant observer: the lamp-post model
• A deep X-ray view of the bare AGN Ark 120. VI. Geometry of the hot corona from spectroscopic and polarization signatures
• Testing the Kerr metric with X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy of Mrk 335 Suzaku data
• The Polarization of X-rays from Warped Black Hole Accretion Disks
• The Effect of Microlensing On the Observed X-ray Energy Spectra of Gravitationally Lensed Quasars
• Monte-Carlo Applications for Partially Polarised Inverse External-Compton Scattering (MAPPIES) -- I. Description of the code and First Results
• The Relative Importance of Faraday Rotation and QED Birefringence for the Linear Polarization of X-rays from Mass Accreting Black Holes
• Generally Applicable Formalism for Modeling the Observable Signatures of Inflows, Outflows, and Moving Coronal Plasma Close to Kerr Black Holes
• Spectro-polarimetric study to constrain accretion-ejection properties of MCG-5-23-16 using IXPE and NuSTAR observations
• Supermassive Black Hole Spin and Reverberation
• Possible Coronal Geometry in the Hard and Soft State of Black Hole X-ray Binaries from MONK Simulations
• A significant detection of X-ray Polarization in Sco X-1 with PolarLight and constraints on the corona geometry
• X-ray Polarization of Inverse Compton Scattering by Thermal and Nonthermal Electrons
• How do Magnetic Field Models Affect Astrophysical Limits on Light Axion-like Particles? An X-ray Case Study with NGC 1275