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Is the Lyman Absorption Edge a Good Observational Test for AGN Accretion Disks?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2017

Wei-Hsin Sun
Affiliation:
NRC/NASA-GSFC, Code 684
Matthew A. Malkan
Affiliation:
Dept. of Astronomy, UCLA

Extract

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Geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disk models which use non-LTE stellar atmospheres predict a Lyman absorption edge near 912Å in the quasar rest frame (Sun and Malkan 1987; Sun 1987). The detailed spectral shapes around the Lyman limit have been calculated for both Kerr and Schwarzschild metrics. The Lyman absorption edge, especially in the (more realistic) Kerr case, is markedly distorted and displaced by the relativistic effects of the strong gravitational field of the black hole and the large Doppler motions of the disk surface. Figure 1 shows a Kerr disk model accreting at 10% of its Eddington luminosity (LEdd), typical for quasars, viewed from five different angles.

Type
Part 4: Black Holes, Accretion Disks and Gravitational Lenses
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1989 

References

1. Sun, W.-H., 1987, , UCLA.Google Scholar
2. Sun, W.-H. and Malkan, M.A., 1987, in “The Third George Mason Astrophysics Workshop: Supermassive Black Hole”, ed Kafatos, M. Google Scholar