pith. sign in

arxiv: astro-ph/0107036 · v1 · submitted 2001-07-03 · 🌌 astro-ph

Thermal Comptonization and Disk Thermal Reprocessing in NGC 3516

classification 🌌 astro-ph
keywords diskopticalthermalvariationsx-raycomptonizationcomptonizingmust
0
0 comments X
read the original abstract

We present an application of the thermal Comptonization/disk reprocessing model recently proposed by Zdziarski, Lubi\'nski, & Smith. We show that the absence of strong optical variations in the presence of strong concurrent X-ray variations, similar to those found by HST/RXTE monitoring observations of NGC 3516, can be explained by changing the geometry of the Comptonizing plasma rather than the accretion disk itself. The total X-ray luminosity of the Comptonizing plasma must decrease as its spatial extent increases. In contrast, the disk inner radius must be roughly fixed in order not to produce optical/ultraviolet color variations stronger than observed. By including emission due to internal viscous dissipation in the disk, we can roughly match the optical and X-ray flux levels and variability amplitudes seen from NGC 3516 during the HST/RXTE campaign.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.