Polarization of emission lines from relativistic accretion disk

Kaiyou Chen

doi:10.1117/12.50569

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1 November 1991 Polarization of emission lines from relativistic accretion disk

Kaiyou Chen

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Proceedings Volume 1548, Production and Analysis of Polarized X Rays; (1991) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.50569
Event: San Diego, '91, 1991, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

Broad emission lines from many accretion powered sources have been observed. These include the UV and the optical lines from active galactic nuclei and broad X-ray lines from galactic black hole candidates. It has been demonstrated that the broad Balmer lines of two radio galaxies, Arp 102B and 3C 332, can be fitted very well by the line profile from a relativistic Keplerian thin disk. The broad iron line of Cyg X-1 can also be fitted reasonably well by the relativistic disk model although the X-ray resolution at present is not high enough to reveal the details of the line profile yet. Since the lines which originate from the relativistic accretion disk could be polarized due to electron scattering in the accretion disk corona, the spectropolarimetric observation could provide a useful diagnostic of the relativistic disk model for these broad emission lines.

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Kaiyou Chen "Polarization of emission lines from relativistic accretion disk", Proc. SPIE 1548, Production and Analysis of Polarized X Rays, (1 November 1991); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.50569

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