The Effect of Non-Thermal Protons on the High Energy Spectra of Black Hole Binaries

Abstract

In the inner regions of an accretion disk around a black hole, the presence of non-thermal protons would via p-p collisions produce electrons, positrons and $\gamma$-rays. For such a scenario, the steady state electron-positron distribution is computed taking into account Compton cooling, $e^{-}{e}^{+}$ pair production (due to $\gamma -\gamma$ interactions) and pair annihilation. The resultant spectra has a broad feature around $1-10$ MeV which may be tested with observations by INTEGRAL and GLAST. Using the available OSSE data for the black hole system, GRS 1915+115 we illustrate that an upper limit on the non-thermal proton fraction can be obtained, which may put constraints on the acceleration process active in this system.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJ

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• Observation of Diffuse Cosmic and Atmospheric Gamma Rays at Balloon Altitudes with an Electron-tracking Compton Camera
• Non-thermal processes around accreting galactic black holes
• New readout and data-acquisition system in an electron-tracking Compton camera for MeV gamma-ray astronomy (SMILE-II)
• Particle Acceleration in Advection-Dominated Accretion Disks with Shocks: Green's Function Energy Distribution
• Self-consistent computation of gamma-ray spectra due to proton-proton interactions in black hole systems