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RAPTOR II: Polarized radiative transfer in curved spacetime

Bronzwaer, T; Younsi, Z; Davelaar, J; Falcke, H; (2020) RAPTOR II: Polarized radiative transfer in curved spacetime. Astronomy and Astrophysics , 641 , Article A126. 10.1051/0004-6361/202038573. Green open access

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Abstract

Accreting supermassive black holes are sources of polarized radiation that propagates through highly curved spacetime before reaching the observer. In order to help interpret observations of such polarized emission, accurate and efficient numerical schemes for polarized radiative transfer in curved spacetime are needed. In this manuscript we extend our publicly available radiative transfer code RAPTOR to include polarization. We provide a brief review of different codes and methods for covariant polarized radiative transfer available in the literature and existing codes, and present an efficient new scheme. For the spacetime-propagation aspect of the computation, we develop a compact, Lorentz-invariant representation of a polarized ray. For the plasma-propagation aspect of the computation, we perform a formal analysis of the stiffness of the polarized radiative-transfer equation with respect to our explicit integrator, and develop a hybrid integration scheme that switches to an implicit integrator in case of stiffness, in order to solve the equation with optimal speed and accuracy for all possible values of the local optical/Faraday thickness of the plasma. We perform a comprehensive code verification by solving a number of well-known test problems using RAPTOR and comparing its output to exact solutions. We also demonstrate convergence with existing polarized radiative-transfer codes in the context of complex astrophysical problems. RAPTOR is capable of performing polarized radiative transfer in arbitrary, highly curved spacetimes. This capability is crucial for interpreting polarized observations of accreting black holes, which can yield information about the magnetic-field configuration in such accretion flows. The efficient formalism implemented in RAPTOR is computationally light and conceptually simple. The code is publicly available.

Type: Article
Title: RAPTOR II: Polarized radiative transfer in curved spacetime
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038573
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038573
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: radiative transfer / black hole physics / polarization
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10110612
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