科研之友
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摘要
The central engines of both type 1 and type 2 active galactic nuclei are thought to harbour a toroidal structure that absorbs and reprocesses high-energy photons from the central X-ray source. Unique features in the reprocessed spectra can provide powerful physical constraints on the geometry, column density, element abundances and orientation of the circumnuclear matter. If the reprocessor is Compton-thick, the calculation of emission-line and continuum spectra that are suitable for direct fitting to X-ray data is challenging because the reprocessed emission depends on the spectral shape of the incident continuum, which may not be directly observable. We present new Monte Carlo calculations of Green's functions for a toroidal reprocessor that provide significant improvements over currently available models. The Green's function approach enables the construction of X-ray spectral fitting models that allow arbitrary incident spectra as part of the fitting process. The calculations are fully relativistic and have been performed for column densities that cover the Compton-thin to Compton-thick regime, for incident photon energies up to 500 keV. The Green's function library can easily be extended cumulatively to provide models that are valid for higher input energies and a wider range of element abundances and opening angles of the torus. The reprocessed continuum and fluorescent line emission due to Fe K alpha, Fe K beta and Ni K alpha are treated self-consistently, eliminating the need for ad hoc modelling that is currently common practice. We find that the spectral shape of the Compton-thick reflection spectrum in both the soft and hard X-ray bands in our toroidal geometry is different compared with that obtained from disc models. A key result of our study is that a Compton-thick toroidal structure that subtends the same solid angle at the X-ray source as a disc can produce a reflection spectrum that is similar to 6 times weaker than that from a disc. This highlights the widespread and erroneous interpretation of the so-called 'reflection-fraction' as a solid angle, obtained from fitting disc-reflection models to Compton-thick sources without regard for proper consideration of geometry.
- 出版日期2009-8-11
