Observations of X-ray reverberation around black holes

Abstract

The X-ray emission from accreting black hole (BH) systems displays strong variability. Short reverberation lags are expected between the primary hard X-ray continuum and the reprocessed disc emission. These lags depend on light-travel distances, thus offering the opportunity to map the geometry of the innermost accretion flow. X-ray reverberation lags have been observed in several BH accreting systems. In radio quiet active galactic nuclei (AGN) these lags scale with BH mass and point to a reprocessing region located close to the Comptonizing X-ray corona. On the other hand, reverberation lags detected in the hard state of some BH X-ray binaries (BHXRB) suggest a different accretion flow geometry than in AGN, showing evidence of evolution as a function of luminosity.