Plasma Dynamics of Radiative Cooling Accretion Flow in AM Herculis with XRISM

Abstract

We present XRISM/Resolve high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the prototypical magnetic cataclysmic variable AM Herculis. All satellite lines of highly ionized Fe are fully resolved. Lighter element lines (Si, S, Ca) show 2 - 3 eV widths consistent with purely thermal broadening, while the broader 6 - 7 eV Fe lines require additional bulk Doppler broadening. Spin-phase-resolved modulations are clearly detected in the Fe XXV and Fe XXVI lines, with semi-amplitudes of $81.8\pm 6$ km s${}^{-1}$ and $132.5\pm 9$ km s${}^{-1}$, and mean velocities of $143.6\pm 6$ km s${}^{-1}$ and $225.6\pm 8$ km s${}^{-1}$, respectively. After removing these bulk Doppler shifts, we obtain intrinsic Doppler widths of $5.23_{-0.15}^{+0.16}$ eV for Fe XXV and $6.23_{-0.18}^{+0.19}$ eV for Fe XXVI, directly revealing gradients of bulk velocity and temperature in the cooling-flow plasma. We additionally examined the resonance anisotropy predicted by Terada et al. (1999, 2001): the equivalent widths of the Fe XXV and Fe XXVI resonance lines increase at the pole-on phase by factors of 1.30 - 1.35, in positive correlation with their oscillator strengths. Combining XRISM with simultaneous NuSTAR data and PSAC/MCVSPEC plasma models, we derive a self-consistent shock temperature of $24.0\pm 0.1$ keV and shock velocity of $1,116\pm 2$ km s${}^{-1}$. Radiative transfer simulations of the resonance lines further constrain the shock density to about $(5-6)\times 10^{15}$ cm${}^{-3}$, providing a new density diagnostic for accretion columns. The resulting accretion column geometry has a height of 200 - 300 km and a radius of 200 - 400 km.

18 pages in double column, 11 figures, 4 table, Accepted for publication in ApJ