New simulations of the X-ray spectra and polarizations of accretion-disc corona systems with various geometrical configurations I. Model Description

TL;DR

This study models X-ray polarization from accretion disc corona systems with different geometries to distinguish their configurations, revealing polarization heavily depends on geometry and energy, which upcoming missions can verify.

Contribution

It introduces polarization modeling for various corona geometries using the LEMON code, providing a new method to differentiate configurations beyond spectral fitting.

Findings

Polarization degree varies with geometry: slab > cylinder > sphere.

Polarization peaks then decreases with photon energy.

Zero polarization point and angle rotation occur in slab geometry.

Abstract

Energetic X-ray radiations emitted from various accretion systems are widely considered to be produced by Comptonization in the hot corona. The corona and its interaction with the disc play an essential role in the evolution of the system and are potentially responsible for many observed features. However many intrinsic properties of the corona are still poorly understood, especially for the geometrical configurations. The traditional spectral fitting method is not powerful enough to distinguish various configurations. In this paper we intent to investigate the possible configurations by modeling the polarization properties of X-ray radiations. The geometries of the corona include the slab, sphere and cylinder. The simulations are implemented through the publicly available code, LEMON, which can deal with the polarized radiative transfer and different electron distributions readily. The results demonstrate clearly that the observed polarizations are dependent on the geometry of the corona heavily. The slab-like corona produces the highest polarization degrees, the following are the cylinder and sphere. One of the interesting things is that the polarization degrees first increase gradually and then decrease with the increase of photon energy. For slab geometry there exists a zero point where the polarization vanishes and the polarization angle rotates for $90^\circ$. These results may potentially be verified by the upcoming missions for polarized X-ray observations, such as $IXPE$ and $eXTP$.