|
|
Polarisation of X-ray emission from accretion discs in active galactic nuclei
Podgorný, Jakub ; Dovčiak, Michal (advisor)
The presented thesis deals with theoretical modeling of the X-ray emission from active galactic nuclei. It studies spectral and polarisation properties of local radiation reflected from the surrounding accretion disc, which is being illuminated by a hot corona above, as well as global observational perspectives at infinity for unobscured radio-quiet sources. Modeling of this kind could then serve for observational fitting of spin of the central supermassive black hole, constraining the accretion disc's or coronal properties, or de- termining observer's inclination towards the systems. A radiative transfer Monte Carlo simulation code STOKES [Goosmann and Gaskell, 2007, Marin et al., 2012, 2015, Marin, 2018] is used for local computations. Its performance is compared to results of other attempts already existing in literature and analytical approximations. The local scheme is discussed mostly in terms of emergent polarisation that has been for the first time simulated for these types of objects with high accuracy. Integration over the accretion disc and superposition with the primary radiation in the so-called lamp-post or extended coronal model, including all general relativistic effects in the vicinity of the central super- massive black hole, is then performed on the basis of already existing routine...
|
|
| |
|
|
Perturbing the accretion flow onto a supermassive black hole by a passing star
Suková, Petra ; Zajaček, M. ; Witzany, V. ; Karas, Vladimír
The close neighbourhood of a supermassive black hole contains not only accreting gas and dust, but also stellar-sized objects like stars, stellar-mass black holes, neutron stars, and dust-enshrouded objects that altogether form a dense nuclear star-cluster.These objects interact with the accreting medium and they perturb the otherwise quasi-stationary configuration of the accretion flow. We investigate how the passages of a star can influence the black hole gaseous environment with GRMHD 2D and3D simulations. We focus on the changes in the accretion rate and the associated emergence of outflowing blobs of plasma.
|
|
|
From gappy to ringed: signatures of an accretion disk radial structure in profiles of the reflection line
Štolc, Marcel ; Zajaček, M. ; Karas, Vladimír
We focus on the theoretical profiles of a spectral line produced by reflection of the surface of both gappy accretion disk and a ring-like structure near a black hole. We describe the relativistic effects in an approximative manner. While a smooth accretion disk leads to a typical, double-horn shape with unequal wings due to Doppler boosting and an additional peak due to the lensing amplification at high inclination angle, the gaps and rings give rise to a more complex dependence which reflects the location and the radial extent of the inhomogeneities in the accretion flow.
|
|
|
Polarisation of X-ray emission from accretion discs in active galactic nuclei
Podgorný, Jakub ; Dovčiak, Michal (advisor) ; Marin, Frédéric (referee)
The presented thesis deals with theoretical modeling of the X-ray emission from active galactic nuclei. It studies spectral and polarisation properties of local radiation reflected from the surrounding accretion disc, which is being illuminated by a hot corona above, as well as global observational perspectives at infinity for unobscured radio-quiet sources. Modeling of this kind could then serve for observational fitting of spin of the central supermassive black hole, constraining the accretion disc's or coronal properties, or de- termining observer's inclination towards the systems. A radiative transfer Monte Carlo simulation code STOKES [Goosmann and Gaskell, 2007, Marin et al., 2012, 2015, Marin, 2018] is used for local computations. Its performance is compared to results of other attempts already existing in literature and analytical approximations. The local scheme is discussed mostly in terms of emergent polarisation that has been for the first time simulated for these types of objects with high accuracy. Integration over the accretion disc and superposition with the primary radiation in the so-called lamp-post or extended coronal model, including all general relativistic effects in the vicinity of the central super- massive black hole, is then performed on the basis of already existing routine...
|
|
|
The fields of current loops around black holes
Vlasáková, Zuzana ; Semerák, Oldřich (advisor) ; Karas, Vladimír (referee)
The field of a test current loop placed symmetrically in the equatorial plane around a Kerr black hole has been studied several times and solutions have been published in different forms. We compare these results and determine their limits in important places - in radial infinity, on the outer event horizon, on the static limit, in the equatorial plane and on the axis of symmetry. Furthermore, we show the behaviour of the field corresponding to the extreme black hole and verify Meissner effect. In the end we determine the field of a simple model of a current disc by a superposition of test current loops. This problem has an astrophysical motivation - the description of accretion discs in the vicinity of black holes. 1
|
|
|
Dynamics of spinning test particles in curved spacetimes
Zelenka, Ondřej ; Loukes Gerakopoulos, Georgios (advisor) ; Witzany, Vojtěch (referee)
The motion of a test particle in the Schwarzschild background models the merger of a compact object binary with extremely different masses known in the literature as Extreme Mass Ratio Inspiral. In the simplest geodesic approxima- tion, this motion is integrable and there is no chaos. When one takes the spin of the smaller body into account, integrability is broken and prolonged resonances along with chaotic orbits appear. By employing the methods of Poincaré surface of section, rotation number and recurrence analysis we show for the first time that there is chaos for astrophysically relevant spin values. We propose a uni- versal method of measuring widths of resonances in perturbations of geodesic motion in the Schwarzschild spacetime using action-angle-like variables. We ap- ply this novel method to demonstrate that one of the most prominent resonances is driven by second order in spin terms by studying its growth, supporting the expectation that chaos will not play a dominant role in Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals. Last but not least, we compute gravitational waveforms in the time- domain and establish that they carry information on the motion's dynamics. In particular, we show that the time series of the gravitational wave strain can be used to discern regular from chaotic motion of the source. 1
|
|
|
Neglected gravitational redshift in detections of gravitational waves
Křížek, Michal ; Somer, L.
In 2016, the letter [1] about the first detection of gravitational waves was published. They were generated by two merging black holes that had approximately 36 and 29 Sun’s masses. However, the authors have not taken into account a large gravitational redshift of this binary system, which is a direct consequence of time dilation in a strong gravitational field. Thus the proposed masses are overestimated. In our paper we also give other arguments for this statement.
|
|
|
Accreting black holes via X-ray polarimetry
Mikušincová, Romana ; Svoboda, Jiří (advisor) ; Matt, Giorgio (referee)
Black hole spin is an essential parameter, for it provides us with the infor- mation on the black hole formation and growth. In this Thesis, we simulated observations for an upcoming X-ray polarimetric mission IXPE (Imaging X- ray Polarimetry Explorer) with the aim to study the robustness of black hole spin and inclination measured via X-ray polarimetry. To simulate polarization spectra, we used a multicolor blackbody emission model accounting for thermal radiation from the accretion disk. For the case of maximally rotating black hole (spin a = 0.998), we were able to reconstruct both spin and inclination of the system with a high precision (∆a ≤ 0.2 for spin and ∆θ ≤ 15 deg for inclination). For less rotating black holes, the spin was correctly recovered, but with a large uncertainty. The inclination is well constrained for any spin value. We conclude that polarimetric measurements will be useful to make independent black hole spin measurements, that would be compared with the spectral-fitting and timing methods. Therefore, X-ray polarimetric missions will be highly desirable. 1
|
|
|
Relativistic corrections in hard X-ray spectra of accreting black holes
Štofanová, Lýdia ; Svoboda, Jiří (advisor) ; Róžaňska, Agata (referee)
Hard X-ray spectra of accreting black holes in active galactic nuclei and X- ray binaries are characterized by a power-law shape with an exponential cut-off energy at several tens up to few hundreds of keV. The value of the cut-off energy is related to the temperature of a hot corona that reprocesses and inversely Comptonizes thermal emission from the accretion disc. The exact geometry of the corona is still unknown. Several observations suggest it to be very compact and in a close proximity to the black hole. This implies strong relativistic effects such as gravitational redshift, Doppler shift, light bending and beaming to shape the resulting spectra. However, the relativistic effects on primary X-ray emission are often neglected in the data spectral fitting. In this work, we investigate how large uncertainty is introduced by neglecting these relativistic effects. To this purpose, we performed simulations of X-ray spectra for different coronal geometries, and compared the intrinsic and observed values of the cutoff energy. We re-analyzed NuSTAR observations of an active galactic nucleus 1H0419-577 and X-ray binary GRS 1915+105. We found that the extremely low coronal temperatures observed in these sources may be explained by the gravitational redshift due to the proximity of the compact corona to the black hole....
|
guest ::
