Generally Applicable Formalism for Modeling the Observable Signatures of Inflows, Outflows, and Moving Coronal Plasma Close to Kerr Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a versatile formalism for modeling how moving plasma near Kerr black holes affects observable X-ray signatures, aiding interpretation of complex astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a new general relativistic framework to simulate radiation interactions with plasma streams close to Kerr black holes, applicable to various observational scenarios.

Findings

Demonstrated the formalism with a fast wind example near a Kerr black hole.

Showed the approach can model X-ray spectral, timing, reverberation, and polarization data.

Facilitates interpretation of observational signatures from inflows, outflows, and jets.

Abstract

We present a generally applicable formalism for modeling the emission, absorption, reflection, and reprocessing of radiation by moving plasma streams close to a Kerr Black hole. The formalism can be used to investigate the observational signatures of a wide range of phenomena, including: (i) the reflection of coronal X-ray radiation off plasma plunging from the inner edge of a black hole accretion disk towards the black hole; (ii) the reflection of coronal X-ray emission off the upper layers of a geometrically thick accretion flow; (iii) the illumination of the accretion disk by a corona moving with relativistic velocities towards or away from the accretion disk; (iv) the emission from a jet forming close to the black hole. After introducing the general relativistic treatment, we show the results for a fast wind forming close to a Kerr black hole. The approach presented here can be used to model X-ray spectral, timing, reverberation, and polarization data.