THE STRUCTURE AND SPECTRAL FEATURES OF A THIN DISK AND EVAPORATION-FED CORONA IN HIGH-LUMINOSITY ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

Journal Article · Wed Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/754/2/81· OSTI ID:22039265

Liu, J Y ^[1]; Liu, B F; Qiao, E L ^[2]; Mineshige, S ^[3]

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1. National Astronomical Observatories/Yunnan Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650011 (China)
2. National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012 (China)
3. Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502 (Japan)

We investigate the accretion process in high-luminosity active galactic nuclei (HLAGNs) in the scenario of the disk evaporation model. Based on this model, the thin disk can extend down to the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) at accretion rates higher than 0.02 M-dot{sub Edd} while the corona is weak since part of the coronal gas is cooled by strong inverse Compton scattering of the disk photons. This implies that the corona cannot produce as strong X-ray radiation as observed in HLAGNs with large Eddington ratio. In addition to the viscous heating, other heating to the corona is necessary to interpret HLAGN. In this paper, we assume that a part of accretion energy released in the disk is transported into the corona, heating up the electrons, and is thereby radiated away. For the first time, we compute the corona structure with additional heating, fully taking into account the mass supply to the corona, and find that the corona could indeed survive at higher accretion rates and that its radiation power increases. The spectra composed of bremsstrahlung and Compton radiation are also calculated. Our calculations show that the Compton-dominated spectrum becomes harder with the increase of energy fraction (f) liberating in the corona, and the photon index for hard X-ray (2-10 keV) is 2.2 < {Gamma} < 2.7. We discuss possible heating mechanisms for the corona. Combining the energy fraction transported to the corona with the accretion rate by magnetic heating, we find that the hard X-ray spectrum becomes steeper at a larger accretion rate and the bolometric correction factor (L{sub bol}/L{sub 2-10keV}) increases with increasing accretion rate for f < 8/35, which is roughly consistent with the observational results.

• OSTI ID: 22039265
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 754; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ACCRETION DISKS
ASTROPHYSICS
BOLOMETERS
BREMSSTRAHLUNG
COMPTON EFFECT
CORRECTIONS
GALAXY NUCLEI
GAMMA ASTRONOMY
HARD X RADIATION
INDEXES
KEV RANGE
MASS
ORBITS
STELLAR CORONAE
X-RAY GALAXIES
X-RAY SPECTRA