Implementation of two-component advective flow solution in XSPEC

Dipak Debnath, Sandip K. Chakrabarti, Santanu Mondal

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

84 Scopus citations

Abstract

Spectral and temporal properties of black hole candidates can be explained reasonably well using Chakrabarti-Titarchuk solution of two-component advective flow (TCAF). This model requires two accretion rates, namely the Keplerian disc accretion rate and the halo accretion rate, the latter being composed of a sub-Keplerian, low-angular-momentum flow which may or may not develop a shock. In this solution, the relevant parameter is the relative importance of the halo (which creates the Compton cloud region) rate with respect to the Keplerian disc rate (soft photon source). Though this model has been used earlier to manually fit data of several black hole candidates quite satisfactorily, for the first time, we made it user friendly by implementing it into XSPEC software of Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)/NASA. This enables any user to extract physical parameters of the accretion flows, such as two accretion rates, the shock location, the shock strength, etc., for any black hole candidate. We provide some examples of fitting a few cases using this model. Most importantly, unlike any other model, we show that TCAF is capable of predicting timing properties from the spectral fits, since in TCAF, a shock is responsible for deciding spectral slopes as well as quasi-periodic oscillation frequencies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)L121-L125
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Volume440
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Accretion
  • Accretion discs-black hole physics-hydrodynamics-radiation
  • Binaries
  • Dynamics-shockwaves-stars
  • GRO J165540-X-rays
  • GX339-4-stars
  • H7143-322-stars
  • Individua
  • Individual

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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