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Impact of intrinsic polarisation of Sgr A* historical flares on (polarisation) properties of their X-ray echoes

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arxiv 2004.01960 v2 pith:HJBW7FXQ submitted 2020-04-04 astro-ph.HE astro-ph.GA

Impact of intrinsic polarisation of Sgr A* historical flares on (polarisation) properties of their X-ray echoes

classification astro-ph.HE astro-ph.GA
keywords x-raypolarisationemissionmolecularbrightestflareflaresintrinsic
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Reflection of X-ray emission on molecular clouds in the inner $\sim$ 100 pc of our Galaxy reveals that, despite being extremely quiet at the moment, our supermassive black hole Sgr A* should have experienced bright flares of X-ray emission in the recent past. Thanks to the improving characterisation of the reflection signal, we are able to infer parameters of the most recent flare(s) (age, duration and luminosity) and relative line-of-sight disposition of the brightest individual molecular complexes. We show that combining these data with measurements of polarisation in the reflected X-ray continuum will not only justify Sgr A* as the primary source but also allow deriving intrinsic polarisation properties of the flare emission. This will help to identify radiation mechanisms and underlying astrophysical phenomena behind them. For the currently brightest reflecting molecular complex, Sgr A, the required level of sensitivity might be already accessible with upcoming X-ray polarimeters.

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