The Similarity of Broad Iron Lines in X-ray Binaries and Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR

This study compares X-ray spectra of a stellar black hole binary and an active galaxy, revealing similar broad iron emission lines likely caused by relativistic reflection near black holes, supporting a unified accretion model.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the broad iron lines in both sources are astrophysical and likely due to reflection from the inner accretion disc, providing constraints on black hole spin.

Findings

The breadth of the iron line in XTE J1650-500 is astrophysical, not instrumental.

Both sources show evidence of relativistically broadened iron lines.

Black hole spin in XTE J1650-500 is constrained between 0.84 and 0.98.

Abstract

We have compared the 2001 XMM-Newton spectra of the stellar mass black hole binary XTE J1650-500 and the active galaxy MGC-6-30-15, focusing on the broad, excess emission features at ~4--7 keV displayed by both sources. Such features are frequently observed in both low mass X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei. For the former case it is generally accepted that the excess arises due to iron emission, but there is some controversy over whether their width is partially enhanced by instrumental processes, and hence also over the intrinsic broadening mechanism. Meanwhile, in the latter case, the origin of this feature is still subject to debate; physically motivated reflection and absorption interpretations are both able to reproduce the observed spectra. In this work we make use of the contemporaneous BeppoSAX data to demonstrate that the breadth of the excess observed in XTE J1650-500 is astrophysical rather than instrumental, and proceed to highlight the similarity of the excesses present in this source and MGC-6-30-15. Both optically thick accretion discs and optically thin coronae, which in combination naturally give rise to relativistically-broadened iron lines when the disc extends close to the black hole, are commonly observed in both class of object. The simplest solution is that the broad emission features present arise from a common process, which we argue must be reflection from the inner regions of an accretion disc around a rapidly rotating black hole; for XTE J1650-500 we find spin constraints of 0.84 < a* < 0.98 at the 90 per cent confidence level. Other interpretations proposed for AGN add potentially unnecessary complexities to the theoretical framework of accretion in strong gravity.