Several active galactic nuclei show correlated variations in the ultraviolet/optical range, with time delays increasing at longer wavelengths. Thermal reprocessing of the X-rays illuminating the accretion disk has been proposed as a viable explanation. In this scenario, the variable X-ray flux irradiating the accretion disk is partially reflected in X-rays, and partially absorbed, thermalized and re-emitted with some delay by the accretion disk at longer wavelengths. We investigate this scenario assuming an X-ray point-like source illuminating a standard Novikov-Thorne accretion disk, around a rotating black hole. We consider all special and general relativistic effects to determine the incident X-ray flux on the disk and in propagating light from the source to the disk and to the observer. We also compute the disk reflection flux taking into consideration the disk ionization. We investigate the dependence of the disk response function and time lags on various physical parameters, such as black hole mass and spin, X-ray corona height, luminosity, and photon index, accretion rate, inclination, and inner/outer disk radii. We found it is important to consider relativistic effects and the disk ionization in estimating the disk response. We also found a strong non-linearity between the X-ray luminosity and the disk response. We present an analytic function for the time-lags dependence on wavelength, which can be used to fit observed time-lag spectra. We also estimate the fraction of the reverberation signal with respect to the total flux and we suggest possible explanation for the lack of X-ray-ultraviolet/optical correlated variations in a few sources.
X-ray reverberation is a powerful technique which maps out the structure of the inner regions of accretion disks around black holes using the echoes of the coronal emission reflected by the disk. While the theory of X-ray reverberation has been developed almost exclusively for standard thin disks, recently reverberation lags have been observed from likely super-Eddington accretion sources such as the jetted tidal disruption event Swift J1644+57. In this paper, we extend X-ray reverberation studies into the super-Eddington accretion regime, focusing on investigating the lags in the Fe Kα line r…
We perform the first systematic search of all NICER archival observations of black hole (and candidate) low-mass X-ray binaries for signatures of reverberation. Reverberation lags result from the light travel time difference between the direct coronal emission and the reflected disk component, and therefore their properties are a useful probe of the disk-corona geometry. We detect new signatures of reverberation lags in 8 sources, increasing the total sample from 3 to 11, and study the evolution of reverberation lag properties as the sources evolve in outbursts. We find that in all of the 9 so…
Reverberation lags viewed in hard X-rays from an accreting stellar-mass black hole
Wuhan University（武汉大学）；Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院高能物理研究所）；Newcastle University（纽卡斯尔大学）；Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya（加泰罗尼亚理工大学）；Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学）
In recent years, continuum reverberation mapping involving high cadence UV/optical monitoring campaigns of nearby Active Galactic Nuclei has been used to infer the size of their accretion disks. One of the main results from these campaigns has been that in many cases the accretion disks appear too large, by a factor of 2 - 3, compared to standard models. Part of this may be due to diffuse continuum emission from the broad line region (BLR), which is indicated by excess lags around the Balmer jump. Standard cross correlation lag analysis techniques are usually used to just recover the peak or c…
The dust reverberation mapping is one of powerful methods to investigate the structure of the dusty tori in AGNs, and it has been performed on more than a hundred type 1 AGNs. However, no clear results have been reported on type 2 AGNs because their strong optical-UV extinction completely hides their accretion disc emission. Here we focus on an X-ray-bright type 2 AGN, NGC 2110, and utilize 2-20 keV X-ray variation monitored by MAXI to trace disc emission, instead of optical-UV variation. Comparing it with light curves in the WISE infrared (IR) W1 band ($λ= 3.4$ $μ$m) and W2 band ($λ= 4.6$ $μ$…
We present a revised analysis of the photometric reverberation mapping campaign of the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy PKS 0558-504 carried out with the Swift Observatory during 2008--2010. Previously, Gliozzi et al.\ found using the Discrete Correlation Function (DCF) method that the short-wavelength continuum variations lagged behind variations at longer wavelengths, the opposite of the trend expected for thermal reprocessing of X-rays by the accretion disc, and they interpreted their results as evidence against the reprocessing model. We carried out new DCF measurements that demonstrate that t…
X-ray reverberation lags have recently been discovered in both active galactic nuclei (AGN) and black hole X-ray binaries. A recent study of the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1608-52 has also shown significant lags, whose properties hint at a reverberation origin. Here, we adapt general relativistic ray tracing impulse response functions used to model X-ray reverberation in AGN for neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries. Assuming relativistic reflection forms the broad iron line and associated reflection continuum, we use reflection fits to the energy spectrum along with the impulse resp…
The Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4593 was monitored spectroscopically with the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a reverberation mapping campaign that also included Swift, Kepler and ground-based photometric monitoring. During 2016 July 12 - August 6, we obtained 26 spectra across a nearly continuous wavelength range of ~1150 - 10,000A. These were combined with Swift data to produce a UV/optical "lag spectrum", which shows the interband lag relative to the Swift UVW2 band as a function of wavelength. The broad shape of the lag spectrum appears to follow the $τ\propto λ^{4/3}$ relation seen previously …
X-ray reverberation mapping has emerged as a new tool to probe accretion in AGN, providing a potentially powerful probe of accretion at the black hole scale. The lags, along with relativistic spectral signatures are often interpreted in light of the lamp-post model. Focusing specifically on testing the prediction of the relativistic reverberation model, we have targeted several of the brightest Seyfert Galaxies in X-rays with different observing programs. Here, we report the results from two large campaigns with NuSATR targeting MCG-5-23-16 and SWIFT J2127.4+5654 to test the model predictions …
Contemporary reverberation mapping campaigns are employing wide-area photometric data and high-multiplex spectroscopy to efficiently monitor hundreds of active galactic nuclei (AGN). However, the interaction of the window function(s) imposed by the observation cadence with the reverberation lag and AGN variability time scales (intrinsic to each source over a range of luminosities) impact our ability to recover these fundamental physical properties. Time dilation effects due to the sample source redshift distribution introduces added complexity. We present comprehensive analysis of the implicat…
The X-ray emission from accreting black hole (BH) systems displays strong variability. Short reverberation lags are expected between the primary hard X-ray continuum and the reprocessed disc emission. These lags depend on light-travel distances, thus offering the opportunity to map the geometry of the innermost accretion flow. X-ray reverberation lags have been observed in several BH accreting systems. In radio quiet active galactic nuclei (AGN) these lags scale with BH mass and point to a reprocessing region located close to the Comptonizing X-ray corona. On the other hand, reverberation lags…
Variable X-ray reverberation in the rapidly accreting AGN Ark 564: the response of the soft excess to the changing geometry of the inner accretion flow
While kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) have been well studied for decades since their initial discovery, the cause of these signals remains unknown, as no model has been able to accurately predict all of their spectral and timing properties. Separately, X-ray reverberation lags have been detected in AGN and stellar-mass black hole binaries, and reverberation may be expected to occur in neutron star systems as well, producing lags of the same amplitude as the lags measured of the kHz QPOs. Furthermore, the detection of a relativistically reflected Fe K line in the time-averaged …
The evolution of the inner accretion flow of a black hole X-ray binary (BHXRB) during the outburst is still a matter of active research. X-ray reverberation lags are powerful tools to constrain the disk-corona geometry. We present a study of X-ray lags in the black hole transient H1743-322. We compared results obtained from the analysis of all the publicly available XMM-Newton observations. These observations were carried out during two different outbursts, happened in 2008 and 2014. During all the observations the source is caught in the hard state and at similar luminosities ($\mathrm{L_{3-1…
Time lags due to X-ray reverberation have been detected in several Seyfert galaxies. The different travel time between reflected and directly observed rays naturally causes this type of lag, which depends directly on the light-crossing timescale of the system and hence scales with the mass of the central black hole. Featureless `hard lags' not associated with reverberation, and often interpreted as propagating mass accretion rate fluctuations, dominate the longer timescale variability. Here we fit our reltrans model simultaneously to the time-averaged energy spectrum and the lag-energy spectra…
Stable X-ray reverberation lags in the black hole X-ray binary Swift J1727.8-1613
Eberhard Karls Universität（蒂宾根大学）；Shandong University of Technology（山东理工大学）；Wuhan University（武汉大学）；Beihang University（北京航空航天大学）；National Institute of Extremely-Weak Magnetic Field Infrastructure（国家极弱磁场大科学装置）
Two years' worth of u-, g-, r-, i-, and z-band optical light curves were obtained for the massive type 1 quasar PG 2308+098 at z=0.433 using the 1.05-m Kiso Schmidt telescope/Kiso Wide Field Camera, and inter-band time lags of the light curves were measured. Wavelength-dependent continuum reverberation lag signals of several tens of days relative to the u-band were detected at g-, r-, i-, and z-bands, where the longer wavelength bands showed larger lags. From the wavelength-dependent lags, and assuming the standard disk temperature radial profile $T \propto R_{\rm disk}^{-3/4}$ and an X-ray/fa…
By applying different statistically robust methods, we analyze the time-lag between the continuum and ionized line-emission (Mg II line) light curves for the distant bright quasar CTS C$30.10$ (redshift $z \sim 0.9$). The data were obtained by the 10-meter SALT telescope in South Africa. In detail, we demonstrate the application of several methods using interpolated cross-correlation function (ICCF), discrete correlation function (DCF), z-transformed discrete correlation function (zDCF), von Neumann estimator, and the JAVELIN code package. In particular, we discuss the uncertainties of these m…
Reverberation lags in AGN were first discovered in the NLS1 galaxy, 1H0707-495. We present a follow-up analysis using 1.3 Ms of data, which allows for the closest ever look at the reverberation signature of this remarkable source. We confirm previous findings of a hard lag of ~100 seconds at frequencies v ~ [0.5 - 4] e-4 Hz, and a soft lag of ~30 seconds at higher frequencies, v ~ [0.6 - 3] e-3 Hz. These two frequency domains clearly show different energy dependences in their lag spectra. We also find evidence for a signature from the broad Fe K line in the high frequency lag spectrum. We use …
High frequency soft reverberation lags have now been detected from stellar mass and super massive black holes. Their interpretation involves reflection of a hard source of photons onto an accretion disk, producing a delayed reflected emission, with a time lag consistent with the light travel time between the irradiating source and the disk. Independently of the location of the clock, the kHz Quasi-Periodic Oscillation (QPO) emission is thought to arise from the neutron star boundary layer. Here, we search for the signature of reverberation of the kHz QPO emission, by measuring the soft lags an…
We report results obtained from a systematic analysis of X-ray lags in a sample of black hole X-ray binaries, with the aim of assessing the presence of reverberation lags and studying their evolution during outburst. We used XMM-Newton and simultaneous RXTE observations to obtain broad-band energy coverage of both the disc and the hard X-ray Comptonization components. In most cases the detection of reverberation lags is hampered by low levels of variability signal-to-noise ratio (e.g. typically when the source is in a soft state) and/or short exposure times. The most detailed study was possibl…
We present the results of a dust-reverberation survey of quasars at redshifts z<0.6. We found a delayed response of the K-band flux variation after the optical flux variation in 25 out of 31 targets, and obtained the lag time between them for 22 targets. Combined with the results for nearby Seyfert galaxies, we provide the largest homogeneous collection of K-band dust-reverberation data for 36 type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This doubles the sample and includes the most distant AGN and the largest lag so far measured. We estimated the optical luminosity of the AGN component of each targe…
Several X-ray observations have recently revealed the presence of reverberation time delays between spectral components in AGN. Most of the observed lags are between the power-law Comptonization component, seen directly, and the soft excess produced by reflection in the vicinity of the black hole. NGC 4151 was the first object to show these lags in the iron K band. Here, we report the discovery of reverberation lags in the Fe K band in two other sources: MCG-5-23-16 and NGC 7314. In both objects, the 6-7 keV band, where the Fe K line peaks, lags the bands at lower and higher energies with a ti…
We studied X-ray reverberation lags in the BHXRB GX 339-4 at the end of the 2014-2015 outburst. We analysed data from a XMM-Newton campaign covering the end of the transition from the soft to the hard state, and the decrease of luminosity in the hard state. During all the observations we detected, at high frequencies, significant disc variability, responding to variations of the power law emission with an average time delay of $\sim0.009\pm 0.002$ s. These new detections of disc thermal reverberation add to those previously obtained and suggest the lag to be always present in hard and hard-int…
The narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy 1H0707-495 has previously been identified as showing time lags between flux variations in the soft- (0.3-1 keV) and medium-energy (1-4 keV) X-ray bands that oscillate between positive and negative values as a function of the frequency of the mode of variation. Here we measure and analyse the lags also between a harder X-ray band (4-7.5 keV) and the soft and medium bands, using existing XMM-Newton data, and demonstrate that the entire spectrum of lags, considering both the full energy range, 0.3-7.5 keV, and the full frequency range, 10^-5 < nu < 10^-2 Hz, are i…
Luminous accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes produce power-law continuum X-ray emission from a compact central corona. Reverberation time lags occur due to light travel time-delays between changes in the direct coronal emission and corresponding variations in its reflection from the accretion flow. Reverberation is detectable using light curves made in different X-ray energy bands, since the direct and reflected components have different spectral shapes. Larger, lower frequency, lags are also seen and are identified with propagation of fluctuations through the accretion flow an…
Reverberation lags have recently been discovered in a handful of nearby, variable AGN. Here, we analyze a ~100 ksec archival XMM-Newton observation of the highly variable AGN, ESO 113-G010 in order to search for lags between hard, 1.5 - 4.5 keV, and soft, 0.3 - 0.9 keV, energy X-ray bands. At the lowest frequencies available in the lightcurve (<1.5E-4 Hz), we find hard lags where the power-law dominated hard band lags the soft band (where the reflection fraction is high). However, at higher frequencies in the range (2-3)E-4 Hz we find a soft lag of -325 +/- 89 s. The general evolution from har…
We present the results of X-ray spectral-timing analysis of a 90ks XMM-Newton observation of the nearby, broad line, early-type AGN NGC5273. The X-ray spectrum revealed the clear presence of a reflection component at high energies, with a clear signature of a narrow iron line at 6.4 keV, consistent with distant reflection. Applying a relativistic reflection model, we found only marginal evidence for a broader relativistic line component. However, cross-spectral analysis revealed that, between 4 and 6 $\times 10^{-4}$ Hz, the 5-8 keV band lagged the 2-3 keV band, implying reflection of the iron…
The UV/optical variations in many AGN are very well correlated, showing delays which increase with increasing wavelength. It is thought that this is due to thermal reprocessing of the X-ray emission by the accretion disk. In this scenario, the variable X-ray flux from the corona illuminates the accretion disk where it is partially reflected, and partially absorbed and thermalized in the disk producing a UV/optical reverberation signal. This will lead to a time lag increasing with wavelength. However, although the shape of the observed time-lags as a function of wavelength is consistent with th…
Accreting black holes show characteristic reflection features in their X-ray spectrum, including an iron K$α$ line, resulting from hard X-ray continuum photons illuminating the accretion disk. The reverberation lag resulting from the path length difference between direct and reflected emission provides a powerful tool to probe the innermost regions around both stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. Here, we present for the first time a reverberation mapping formalism that enables modeling of energy dependent time lags and variability amplitude for a wide range of variability timescales, ta…
The standard approach to the long term evolution of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) is based on one-zone models treating the nebula as a uniform system. In particular for the late phase of evolved systems, many of the generally used prescriptions are based on educated guesses for which a proper assessment lacks. Using an advanced radiative code we evaluate the systematic impact of various parameters, like the properties of the supernova ejecta, of the inner pulsar, as well of the ambient medium, upon the extent of the reverberation phase of PWNe. We investigate how different prescriptions shift the…
We present results of time-series analysis of the first year of the Fairall 9 intensive disc-reverberation campaign. We used Swift and the Las Cumbres Observatory global telescope network to continuously monitor Fairall 9 from X-rays to near-infrared at a daily to sub-daily cadence. The cross-correlation function between bands provides evidence for a lag spectrum consistent with the $τ\proptoλ^{4/3}$ scaling expected for an optically thick, geometrically thin blackbody accretion disc. Decomposing the flux into constant and variable components, the variable component's spectral energy distribut…
IRAS 13224-3809 was observed in 2011 for 500 ks with the XMM-Newton observatory. We detect highly significant X-ray lags between soft (0.3 - 1 keV) and hard (1.2 - 5 keV) energies. The hard band lags the soft at low frequencies (i.e. hard lag), while the opposite (i.e. soft lag) is observed at high frequencies. In this paper, we study the lag during flaring and quiescent periods. We find that the frequency and absolute amplitude of the soft lag is different during high-flux and low-flux periods. During the low flux intervals, the soft lag is detected at higher frequencies and with smaller ampl…
The first reverberation lag from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole was recently detected in the NLS1 galaxy 1H0707-495. We interpreted the lag as being due to reflection from matter close to the black hole, within a few gravitational radii of the event horizon (an inner reflector). It has since been claimed by Miller et al that the lag can be produced by more distant matter, at hundreds of gravitational radii (an outer reflector). Here, we critically explore their interpretation of the lag. The detailed energy dependence of the time lags between soft and hard energy bands is well model…
Models of X-ray reverberation from extended coronae are developed from general relativistic ray tracing simulations. Reverberation lags between correlated variability in the directly observed continuum emission and that reflected from the accretion disc arise due to the additional light travel time between the corona and reflecting disc. X-ray reverberation is detected from an increasing sample of Seyfert galaxies and a number of common properties are observed, including a transition from the characteristic reverberation signature at high frequencies to a hard lag within the continuum componen…
The recent detection of X-ray reverberation lags, especially in the Fe Kα line region, around Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) has opened up the possibility of studying the time-resolved response (reflection) of hard X-rays from the accretion disk around supermassive black holes. Here, we use general relativistic transfer functions for reflection of X-rays from a point source located at some height above the black hole to study the time lags expected as a function of frequency and energy in the Fe Kα line region. We explore the models and the dependence of the lags on key parameters such as the he…
In the past five years, a flurry of X-ray reverberation lag measurements of accreting supermassive black holes have been made using the XMM-Newton telescope in the 0.3-10 keV energy range. In this work, we use the NuSTAR telescope to extend the lag analysis up to higher energies for two Seyfert galaxies, SWIFT J2127.4+5654 and NGC 1365. X-ray reverberation lags are due to the light travel time delays between the direct continuum emission and the reprocessed emission from the inner radii of an ionised accretion disc. XMM-Newton has been particularly adept at measuring the lag associated with th…
General relativistic ray tracing simulations of the time-averaged spectrum and energy-dependent time delays in AGN are presented. We model the lamp-post geometry in which the accreting gas is illuminated by an X-ray source located on the rotation axis of the black hole. The spectroscopic features imprinted in the reflection component are modelled using REFLIONX. The associated time delays after the direct continuum, known as reverberation lags, are computed including the full effects of dilution and ionization gradients on the disc. We perform, for the first time, simultaneous fitting of the t…
We present accretion-disk structure measurements from UV-optical reverberation mapping observations of a sample of eight quasars at 0.24<z<0.85. Ultraviolet photometry comes from two cycles of Hubble Space Telescope monitoring, accompanied by multi-band optical monitoring by the Las Cumbres Observatory network and Liverpool Telescopes. The targets were selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project sample with reliable black-hole mass measurements from Hbeta reverberation mapping results. We measure significant lags between the UV and various optical griz ba…
A framework is developed to perform Fourier-domain timing analysis on X-ray light curves with gaps, employing Gaussian processes to model the probability distribution underlying the observed time series from which continuous samples can be drawn. A technique is developed to measure X-ray reverberation from the inner regions of accretion discs around black holes in the low frequency components of the variability, on timescales longer than can be probed employing standard Fourier techniques. This enables X-ray reverberation experiments to be performed using data from satellites in low-Earth orbi…
High-frequency iron K reverberation lags, where the red wing of the line responds before the line centroid, are a robust signature of relativistic reflection off the inner accretion disc. In this letter, we report the discovery of the Fe K lag in PG 1244+026 from ~120 ks of data (1 orbit of the XMM-Newton telescope). The amplitude of the lag with respect to the continuum is 1000 s at a frequency of ~1e-4 Hz. We also find a possible frequency-dependence of the line: as we probe higher frequencies (i.e. shorter timescales from a smaller emitting region) the Fe K lag peaks at the red wing of the …
We analyze 5 epochs of NICER data of the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 during the bright hard-to-soft state transition in its 2018 outburst with both reflection spectroscopy and Fourier-resolved timing analysis. We confirm the previous discovery of reverberation lags in the hard state, and find that the frequency range where the (soft) reverberation lag dominates decreases with the reverberation lag amplitude increasing during the transition, suggesting an increasing X-ray emitting region, possibly due to an expanding corona. By jointly fitting the lag-energy spectra in a number of br…
We investigate the correlation between infrared (JHKL) and optical (B) fluxes of the variable nucleus of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151 using partially published data for the last 6 years (2008-2013.). Here we are using the same data as in Oknyansky et al. (2014), but include also optical (B) data from Guo et al. We find that the lag of flux in all the infrared bands is the same, 40 +- 6 days, to within the measurement accuracy. Variability in the J and K bands is not quite simultaneous, perhaps due to the differing contributions of the accretion disk in these bands. The lag found for the K band …
Recent intensive Swift monitoring of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 yielded 282 usable epochs over 125 days across six UV/optical bands and the X-rays. This is the densest extended AGN UV/optical continuum sampling ever obtained, with a mean sampling rate <0.5 day. Approximately daily HST UV sampling was also obtained. The UV/optical light curves show strong correlations (r_max = 0.57 - 0.90) and the clearest measurement to date of interband lags. These lags are well-fit by a τpropto λ^4/3 wavelength dependence, with a normalization that indicates an unexpectedly large disk radius of 0.35 +/- 0…
