Investigating the X-ray polarization of lamp-post coronae in BHXRBs
Abstract
High-sensitivity X-ray polarimetric observations of black hole X-ray binaries, which will soon become available with the launches of space-borne X-ray observatories with sensitive X-ray polarimeters, will be able to put independent constraints on the black hole as well as the accretion flow, and possibly break degeneracies that cannot be resolved by spectral/timing observations alone. In this work, we perform a series of general relativistic Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations to study the expected polarization properties of X-ray radiation emerging from lamp-post coronae in black hole X-ray binaries. We find that the polarization degree of the coronal emission of black hole X-ray binaries is sensitive to the spin of the black hole, the height of the corona, and the dynamics of the corona.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- September 2022
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/stac1937
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2207.03228
- Bibcode:
- 2022MNRAS.515.2882Z
- Keywords:
-
- polarization;
- X-rays: binaries;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- Accepted for publication in MNRAS