Comptonization and synchrotron emission in 2D accretion flows

I. A new numerical solver for the Kompaneets equation

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
² Landessternwarte-Koenigstuhl, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
³ Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

Corresponding author: A. Hujeirat, A.Hujeirat@lsw.uni-heidelberg.de

Received: 11 October 2001
Accepted: 31 January 2002

Abstract

A numerical approach is presented for solving the hydro-magnetic radiative transfer equation in 4D, in which the action of the Kompaneets operator and synchrotron cooling are taken into account. The equation is solved using the pre-conditioned Black-White-Brown line Gauss-Seidel semi-iterative method. This alternating approach enables the use of vector and parallel machines without loss of efficiency. The method can be used to constrain and search for density-, temperature- and magnetic-field distributions with or without outflows. This is appropriate for displaying spectra of 2D accretion flows that are consistent with observations of low-mass X-ray binaries.