Le 14 juin 2013
À 10h30
Salle de Cours – Grande Coupole
Francesco TAMBORA
Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
The X-ray spectrum observed in X-ray Binaries (XRBs) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is complex and constituted by several components, due to the circumnuclear material which scatters, absorbs and reprocesses photons produced by the accretion disc. A common feature in all XRBs and AGN X-ray spectra is a strong Iron Kα emission line at 6.4 keV produced by the reprocessing of X-ray photons absorbed by the neutral disc.
Both the X-ray continuum emission and the Iron line emission should show a certain degree of linear polarization depending on the geometry and the optical thickness of the relativistic electrons corona surrounding the disc.
In the framework of this scenario we developed MoCA, a code dedicated to the study of the spectrum and the polarization signal produced in accreting sources. After introducing the basic physics of polarization and accretion I will present the code and some preliminary results.