An Analytical Fourier-Transformation Model for the Production of Hard and Soft X-Ray Time Lags in AGNs: Application to 1H 0707-495

TL;DR

This paper presents an analytical Fourier-transformation model explaining both hard and soft X-ray time lags in AGNs, specifically applied to 1H 0707-495, challenging the reverberation interpretation with a Comptonization-based explanation.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel exact analytical model for thermal and bulk Comptonization of seed photons, providing an alternative explanation for soft X-ray time lags in AGNs.

Findings

Model successfully reproduces observed hard and soft X-ray time lags in 1H 0707-495.

Supports Comptonization as a partial origin of soft X-ray lags, challenging reverberation models.

Demonstrates the applicability of Fourier-transformed radiation transport equations in AGN variability studies.

Abstract

The variability of the X-ray emission from active galactic nuclei is often characterized using time lags observed between soft and hard energy bands in the detector. The time lags are usually computed using the complex cross spectrum, which is based on the Fourier transforms of the hard and soft time series data. It has been noted that some active galactic nuclei display soft X-ray time lags, in addition to the more ubiquitous hard lags. Hard time lags are thought to be produced via propagating fluctuations, spatial reverberation, or via the thermal Comptonization of soft seed photons injected into a hot electron cloud. The physical origin of the soft lags has been a subject of debate over the last decade. Currently, the reverberation interpretation is recognized as a leading theory. In this paper, we explore the alternative possibility that the soft X-ray time lags result partially from the thermal and bulk Comptonization of monochromatic seed photons, which in the case of the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy 1H 0707-495, may correlate with fluorescence of iron L-line emission. In our model, the seed photons are injected into a hot, quasi-spherical corona in the inner region of the accretion flow. We develop an exact, time-dependent analytical model for the thermal and bulk Comptonization of the seed photons based on a Fourier-transformed radiation transport equation, and we demonstrate that the model successfully reproduces both the hard and soft time lags observed from 1H 0707-495.