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arXiv · astro-ph/9608174

Dynamical Comptonization in spherical flows: black hole accretion and stellar winds

Abstract

The transport of photons in steady, spherical, scattering flows is investigated. The moment equations are solved analytically for accretion onto a Schwarzschild black hole, taking into full account relativistic effects. We show that the emergent radiation spectrum is a power law at high frequencies with a spectral index smaller (harder spectrum) than in the non--relativistic case. Radiative transfer in an expanding envelope is also analyzed. We find that adiabatic expansion produces a drift of injected monochromatic photons towards lower frequencies and the formation of a power--law, low--energy tail with spectral index $-3$.

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BibTeXRIS

R. Turolla, S. Zane, L. Zampieri, L. Nobili. 1996-08-27. Dynamical Comptonization in spherical flows: black hole accretion and stellar winds. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras%2F283.3.881

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