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Does the Inner Disk Boundary of a Black Hole X-Ray Binary move During an Outburst?Comptonization in the corona of an X-ray binary may reduce significantly the flux in the observed soft component of its X-ray spectrum. There fore the apparent inner disk radius inferred from the observed soft component may change in accordance to the fraction of the disk emission scattered into the hard component. We have developed a simple numerical model for carrying out the radiative transfer correction, in order to determine the original disk emission before the Comptonization in the hot corona. Applying this model to the extensive monitoring data of several black hole X-ray binaries with RXTE, we have found that most of the previous 1 y reported inner disk radius variations may be explained as due to this radiative transfer effect in the corona. We thus conclude that there is currently no evidence for significant inner disk boundary movement during the outbursts of these black hole X-ray binaries we have studied with the RXTE data.: GROJ1655-40, XTEJ1550-564, XTEJ1748-288 and XTEJ2012+381.
Document ID
20040073172
Acquisition Source
Headquarters
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Zhang, S. N.
(Alabama Univ. Huntsville, AL, United States)
Cui, W.
(Massachusetts Inst. of Tech. Cambridge, MA, United States)
Chen, W.
Harmon, B. A.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Robinson, C. R.
(Universities Space Research Association Huntsville, AL, United States)
Robinson, C. R.
(Universities Space Research Association Huntsville, AL, United States)
Sun, X.
Yao, Y.
Zhang, X.
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2000
Publication Information
Publication: Rossi2000: Astrophysics with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Meeting Information
Meeting: Rossi2000: Astrophysics with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
Location: Greenbelt, MD
Country: United States
Start Date: March 22, 2000
End Date: March 24, 2000
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG5-7927
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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