Impact of the reflection model on the estimate of the properties of accreting black holes

Abstract

Relativistic reflection features in the X-ray spectra of black hole binaries and AGNs originate from illumination of the inner part of the accretion disk by a hot corona. In the presence of high quality data and with the correct astrophysical model, X-ray reflection spectroscopy can be quite a powerful tool to probe the strong gravity region, study the morphology of the accreting matter, measure black hole spins, and even test Einstein's theory of general relativity in the strong field regime. There are a few relativistic reflection models available today and developed by different groups. All these models present some differences and have a number of simplifications introducing systematic uncertainties. The question is whether different models provide different measurements of the properties of black holes and how to arrive at a common model for the whole X-ray astronomy community. In this paper, we start exploring this issue by analyzing a Suzaku observation of the stellar-mass black hole in GRS 1915+105 and simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the supermassive black hole in MCG-6-30-15. The relativistic reflection component of these sources is fitted with RELCONV$\times$REFLIONX, RELCONV$\times$XILLVER, and RELXILL. We discuss the differences and the impact on the study of accreting black holes.

15 pages, 9 figures

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Towards precision measurements of accreting black holes using X-ray reflection spectroscopy
• Testing regular black holes with X-ray and GW data
• Reflection spectra of accretion disks illuminated by disk-like coronae
• Testing the Kerr black hole hypothesis with the continuum-fitting and the iron line methods: the case of GRS 1915+105
• Impact of the disk thickness on X-ray reflection spectroscopy measurements
• High-density reflection spectroscopy of black hole X-ray binaries in the hard state
• A reflection model with a radial disk density profile
• Testing relativistic reflection models with GRMHD simulations of accreting black holes
• Black Hole Spin Measurements Based on a Thin Disc Model with Finite Thickness I. An example study of MCG-06-30-15
• Testing the Keplerian disk hypothesis using X-ray reflection spectroscopy
• Impact of ionization and electron density gradients in X-ray reflection spectroscopy measurements
• About the accuracy of the relxill/relxill_nk models in view of the next generation of X-ray missions
• X-ray reflection spectroscopy with improved calculations of the emission angle
• Investigating the consistency of the shape and flux of X-ray reflection spectra in the hard state with an accretion disk reaching close to the black hole