Spectral Softening due to Winds in Accretion Disks

Abstract

Accretion flows may produce profuse winds when they have positive specific energy. Winds deplete matter from the inner region of the disk and makes the inner region thinner, optically. Since there are fewer electrons in this region, it becomes easier to Comptonize this part by the soft photons which are intercepted from the Keplerian disk farther out. We present a self-consistent picture of winds from an accretion disk and show how the spectra of the disk is softened due to the outflowing wind.

6 Latex pages and three figures. Correction in figure description. Published in Indian Journal of Physics, V. 72B, p. 565-569, 1998