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arxiv: 2501.15380 · v1 · pith:ELSGJPZLnew · submitted 2025-01-26 · 🌌 astro-ph.HE · astro-ph.GA· physics.space-ph

Constraining Disk-to-Corona Power Transfer Fraction, Soft X-ray Excess Origin, and Black Hole Spin Population of Type-1 AGN across Mass Scales

classification 🌌 astro-ph.HE astro-ph.GAphysics.space-ph
keywords x-rayblackdiskholespinexcessmodelpower
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Understanding the nature of the accretion disk, its interplay with the X-ray corona, and assessing black hole spin demographics are some open challenges in astrophysics. In this work, we examine the predictions of the standard $\alpha$-disk model, origin of the soft X-ray excess, and measure the black hole spin parameter by applying the updated high-density disk reflection model to the XMM-Newton/NuSTAR broadband (0.3$-$78 keV) X-ray spectra of a sample of Type-1 AGN. Our Bayesian analysis confirms that the high-density relativistic reflection model with a broken power-law emissivity profile can simultaneously fit the soft X-ray excess, broad iron K line, and Compton hump for $\sim$70% of the sample, while an additional warm Comptonization model is still required to describe the observed soft X-ray excess for the remaining sources. Our first-ever calculation of the disk-to-corona power transfer fraction reveals that the fraction of power released from the accretion disk into the hot corona can have diverse values, the sample median of which is $0.7_{-0.4}^{+0.2}$. We find that the transferred power from the accretion disk can potentially soften the X-ray spectrum of the hot corona. The median values of the hot coronal temperature and optical depth for the sample are estimated to be $63_{-11}^{+23}$ keV and $0.85_{-0.27}^{+0.12}$, respectively. Finally, through joint XMM-Newton+NuSTAR relativistic reflection spectroscopy, we systematically constrain the black hole spin parameter across the broad range of black hole masses, $\log(M_{\rm BH}/M_{\odot}) \sim 5.5-9.0$, and increase the available spin measurements in the AGN population by $\sim$20%.

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Cited by 1 Pith paper

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Observational Properties of Near-Maximally Spinning Supermassive Black Holes

    astro-ph.HE 2026-03 accept novelty 4.0

    GRMHD simulations at spins 0.9375 and 0.998 yield similar fluid properties and full-Stokes EHT images, indicating prior lower-spin runs remain representative for a ≳ 0.9375.