Investigating the impact of vertically extended coronae on X-ray reverberation mapping

Abstract

Accreting black holes commonly exhibit hard X-ray emission, originating from a region of hot plasma near the central engine referred to as the corona. The origin and geometry of the corona are poorly understood, and models invoking either inflowing or outflowing material (or both) can successfully explain only parts of the observed phenomenology. In particular, recent works indicate that the time-averaged and variability property might originate in different regions of the corona. In this paper we present a model designed to move beyond the lamp post paradigm, with the goal of accounting for the vertical extent of the corona. In particular, we highlight the impact of including self consistently a second lamp post, mimicking for example an extended jet base. We fully include the effect that the second source has on the time-dependent disk ionization, reflection spectrum, and reverberation lags. We also present an application of this new model to NICER observations of the X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 near its hard-to-soft state transition. We demonstrate that in these observations, a vertically extended corona can capture both spectral and timing properties, while a single lamp post model can not. In this scenario, the illumination responsible for the time-averaged spectrum originates close to the black hole, while the variability is likely associated with the ballistic jet.

17 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication on ApJ

References in corpus (34)

• Array Programming with NumPy
• X-ray reverberation around accreting black holes
• Relativistic Jets Shine through Shocks or Magnetic Reconnection?
• The corona contracts in a black-hole transient
• Broad iron K-alpha emission lines as a diagnostic of black hole spin
• Polarized x-rays constrain the disk-jet geometry in the black hole x-ray binary Cygnus X-1
• Discovery of multiple Lorentzian components in the X-ray timing properties of the Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Ark 564
• Polarized Blazar X-rays imply particle acceleration in shocks
• A radio parallax to the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070
• A public relativistic transfer function model for X-ray reverberation mapping of accreting black holes
• The Comptonising medium of the neutron star in 4U 1636-53 through its lower kilohertz Quasi-Periodic Oscillations
• Disk, Corona, Jet Connection in the Intermediate State of MAXI J1820+070 Revealed by NICER Spectral-Timing Analysis
• vKompth: A variable Comptonisation model for low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations in black-hole X-ray binaries
• A two-component Comptonisation model for the type-B QPO in MAXI J1348-630
• Uncovering the geometry of the hot X-ray corona in the Seyfert galaxy NGC4151 with IXPE
• Polarized X-rays from windy accretion in Cygnus X-1
• Evolution of the reverberation lag in GX 339-4 at the end of an outburst
• The NICER "Reverberation Machine": A Systematic Study of Time Lags in Black Hole X-Ray Binaries
• An in-depth study of a neutron star accreting at low Eddington rate: On the possibility of a truncated disk and an outflow
• The Effect of Returning Radiation on Relativistic Reflection
• Relativistic X-ray jets from the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070
• Polarization constraints on the X-ray corona in Seyfert Galaxies: MCG-05-23-16
• Multiwavelength Variability Signatures of Relativistic Shocks in Blazar Jets
• Investigating the X-ray time-lags in PG 1244+026 using an extended corona model
• An X-ray reverberation mass measurement of Cygnus X-1
• Modelling correlated variability in accreting black holes: the effect of high density and variable ionisation on reverberation lags
• Dual-Corona Comptonization model for the Type-B Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in GX 339-4
• Multi-timescale reverberation mapping of Mrk 335
• MAXI J1820+070 X-ray spectral-timing reveals the nature of the accretion flow in black hole binaries
• Evolution of the hot flow of MAXI J1543-564
• X-ray Reverberation Mapping of Ark 564 using Gaussian Process Regression
• A Hard Look At Relativistic Reverberation in MCG-5-23-16 & SWIFT J2127.4+5654: Testing the Lamp-Post Model
• An Electron-Scattering Time Delay in Black Hole Accretion Disks
• On measuring the Hubble constant with X-ray reverberation mapping of active galactic nuclei

Cited by in corpus (6)

• A variable corona during the transition from type-C to type-B quasi-periodic oscillations in the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070
• Resolving the Vicinity of Supermassive Black Holes with Gravitational Microlensing
• Exploring the broadband spectral and timing characteristics of GRS 1915+105 with AstroSat and NICER observations
• Relativistic reflection within an extended hot plasma geometry
• Monte Carlo simulation of the Compton scattering and disk reflection of a cylinder with hot electrons moving away from a black hole
• Accretion Geometry of Black Hole X-ray Binaries: Insights from X-ray Observations