artpol: Analytical ray-tracing method for spectro-polarimetric properties of accretion disks around Kerr black holes

TL;DR

artpol is a fast analytical ray-tracing method for polarized light around Kerr black holes, enabling efficient extraction of black hole parameters from spectro-polarimetric data, significantly reducing computation time.

Contribution

This work introduces a novel analytical ray-tracing technique for polarized light in Kerr spacetime, replacing slower numerical methods and enabling rapid analysis of X-ray polarimetric observations.

Findings

artpol achieves high accuracy for Kerr black holes with spin a ≤ 0.94

the method is over four orders of magnitude faster than traditional ray-tracing

it facilitates direct fitting of spectro-polarimetric data from upcoming missions

Abstract

Spectro-polarimetric signatures of accretion disks in X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei contain information about the masses and spins of their central black holes, as well as the geometry of matter close to the compact objects. This information can be extracted using the means of X-ray polarimetry. In this work, we present a fast analytical ray-tracing technique for polarized light \textsc{artpol} that helps obtain the spinning black hole parameters from the observed properties. This technique can replace the otherwise time-consuming numerical ray-tracing calculations. We show that \textsc{artpol} proves accurate for Kerr black holes with dimensionless spin parameter $a\leq0.94$ while being over four orders of magnitude faster than direct ray-tracing calculations. This approach opens broad prospects for directly fitting the spectro-polarimetric data from the \textit{Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer}.