RAIKOU: A General Relativistic, Multi-wavelength Radiative Transfer Code

TL;DR

RAIKOU is a versatile general relativistic radiative transfer code that models spectra and images around Kerr black holes, incorporating key radiative processes and electron distributions for multi-wavelength astrophysical studies.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive, multi-algorithm radiative transfer framework applicable to diverse black hole accretion scenarios, including thermal and nonthermal electron populations.

Findings

Successfully modeled black hole shadows and spectra.

Demonstrated application to supermassive black hole accretion flow.

Enabled multi-wavelength spectrum calculations from radio to gamma-ray.

Abstract

We present a general relativistic, ray-tracing radiative transfer code RAIKOU for multi-wavlength studies of spectra and images including the black hole shadows around Kerr black holes. Important radiative processes in hot plasmas around black holes, i.e., (cyclo-)synchrotron, bremsstrahlung emission/absorption and Compton/inverse-Compton scattering, are incorporated. The Maxwell-J\"uttner and single/broken power-law electron distribution functions are implemented to calculate the radiative transfer via both of the thermal and the nonthermal electrons. Two calculation algorithms are implemented for studies of both the images and broadband spectra. An observer-to-emitter algorithm, which inversely solve the radiative transfer equation from the observer screen to emitting plasmas, is suitable for efficient calculations of the images, e.g., the black hole shadows, and spectra without the Compton effects. On the other hand, an emitter-to-observer algorithm, by which photons are transported with a Monte-Carlo method including the effects of Compton/inverse-Compton scatterings, enables us to compute multi-wavelength spectra with their energy bands broadly ranging from radio to very-high-energy gamma-ray. The code is generally applicable to accretion flows around Kerr black holes with relativistic jets and winds/coronae with various mass accretion rate (i.e., radiatively inefficient accretion flows, super-Eddington accretion flows, and others). We demonstrate an application of the code to a radiatively innefficent accretion flow onto a supermassive black hole.