The Reflection Component from Cygnus X-1 in the Soft State Measured by NuSTAR and Suzaku

2013 
The black hole binary Cygnus X-1 was observed in late 2012 with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and Suzaku, providing spectral coverage over the ~1-300 keV range. The source was in the soft state with a multi-temperature blackbody, power law, and reflection components along with absorption from highly ionized material in the system. The high throughput of NuSTAR allows for a very high quality measurement of the complex iron line region as well as the rest of the reflection component. The iron line is clearly broadened and is well described by a relativistic blurring model, providing an opportunity to constrain the black hole spin. Although the spin constraint depends somewhat on which continuum model is used, we obtain ɑ_* > 0.83 for all models that provide a good description of the spectrum. However, none of our spectral fits give a disk inclination that is consistent with the most recently reported binary values for Cyg X-1. This may indicate that there is a >13° misalignment between the orbital plane and the inner accretion disk (i.e., a warped accretion disk) or that there is missing physics in the spectral models.
    • Correction
    • Source
    • Cite
    • Save
    • Machine Reading By IdeaReader
    74
    References
    137
    Citations
    NaN
    KQI
    []