X-ray Reverberation with Athena
Abstract
Reprocessing of the primary X-ray continuum in the accretion disc produces reverberation lags which are powerful tools to map the close environments of accreting black holes. X-ray reverberation lags have been measured in radio quiet active galactic nuclei (AGN), giving constraints of a few rg on the distance between the corona and the accretion disc. However, determining the disc-corona geometry requires data of much better quality. The Athena X-ray observatory will make a breakthrough in this field. The large effective area will allow us to obtain high signal-to-noise lag measurements, and to detail the temporal response of the accretion disc to coronal variability. Through simulations of Wide Field Imager (WFI) light curves, we show that time lag measurements will allow us to distinguish among different corona geometries, and to provide independent constraints on the black hole spin.
- Publication:
-
Exploring the Hot and Energetic Universe: The first scientific conference dedicated to the Athena X-ray observatory
- Pub Date:
- September 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015eheu.conf...51D