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Session 62 - X-ray Astronomy: New Discoveries.
Oral session, Tuesday, January 16
1st Floor, La Villita Assembly Building
Seyfert galaxies commonly show Fe-K line emission. X-ray spectra from ASCA now enable the line to be resolved. In Seyfert 1 galaxies the line is often found to be broad, and in the best observed cases is skew, with a sharp drop at the higher energies (\sim 6.5 - 7 keV) and a long tail to lower energies (4 - 5 keV). The line is best modeled by fluorescence from the innermost regions (less than about 20 Schwarzschild radii) of an accretion disk about a massive black hole. The profile and time variation of the iron line in MCG-6-30-15 will be discussed, together with results from some other Seyfert 1 galaxies. Additional emission from outer gas in both Seyfert 1 and 2 galaxies is used to constrain the overall geometry. Finally, the prospects for understanding the near environment of black holes through iron-line spectroscopy will be outlined.
