X-ray spectra produced by a hot plasma containing cold clouds

Abstract

We compute the hard X-ray spectra from a hot plasma pervaded by small cold dense clouds. The main cooling mechanism of the plasma is Compton cooling by the soft thermal emission from the clouds. We compute numerically the equilibrium temperature of the plasma together with the escaping spectrum. The spectrum depends mainly on the amount of cold clouds filling the hot phase. The clouds covering factor is constrained to be low in order to produce spectra similar to those observed in Seyfert galaxies and X-ray binaries, implying that an external reflector is required in order to reproduce the full range of observed reflection amplitudes. We also derive analytical estimates for the X-ray spectral slope and reflection amplitude using an escape probability formalism.

8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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