bmc: Comptonization by relativistic matter
This is an analytic model describing Comptonization of soft photons by matter undergoing relativistic bulk-motion. The typical scenario involves thermal X-rays from the inner region of an accretion disk in a black-hole binary illuminating in-falling matter in close proximity to the black-hole event horizon. For a detailed description of the model, refer to Titarchuk, Mastichiadis & Kylafis 1997, ApJ, 487, 834; Titarchuk & Zannias, 1998, ApJ, 493, 863; Laurent & Titarchuk 1999, ApJ, 511, 289; Zannias, Borozdin, Revnivtsev., Trudolyubov, Shrader, & Titarchuk, 1999, ApJ, 517, 367; or Shrader & Titarchuk 1999, ApJ 521, L21. The model parameters are the characteristic black-body temperature of the soft photon source, a spectral (energy) index, and an illumination parameter characterizing the fractional illumination of the bulk-motion flow by the thermal photon source. It must be emphasized that this model is not an additive combination of power law and thermal sources, rather it represents a self-consistent convolution. The bulk-motion up-scattering and Compton recoil combine to produce the hard spectral tail, which combined with the thermal source results in the canonical high-soft-state spectrum of black hole accretion. The position of the sharp high energy cutoff (due to recoil) can be determined using the theta function . The model can also be used for the general Comptonization case when the energy range is limited from above by the plasma temperature (see compTT and compST).
par1 |
Temperature of thermal photon source in keV. |
par2 |
Energy spectral index alpha. |
par3 |
Log of the A parameter. Note that f in Borozdin et al. 1999 and Shrader & Titarchuk 1999 is 10par3 |
norm |
AN defined in Borozdin et al 1999 and Shrader & Titarchuk (1999) |