Applications of Indirect Imaging techniques in X-ray binaries

Abstract

A review is given on aspects of indirect imaging techniques in X-ray binaries which are used as diagnostics tools for probing the X-ray dominated accretion disc physics. These techniques utilize observed properties such as the emission line profile variability, the time delays between simultaneous optical/X-ray light curves curves, the light curves of eclipsing systems and the pulsed emission from the compact object in order to reconstruct the accretion disc's line emissivity (Doppler tomography), the irradiated disc and heated secondary (echo mapping), the outer disc structure (modified eclipse mapping) and the accreting regions onto the compact object, respectively.