Testing Relativistic Reflection Models with GRMHD Simulations of Accreting Black Holes

Abstract

X-ray reflection spectroscopy is currently one of the leading techniques for studying the inner part of accretion disks around black holes, measuring black hole spins, and even testing fundamental physics in strong gravitational fields. However, the accuracy of these measurements depends on the reflection models employed for the spectral analysis, which are sometimes questioned. In this work, we use a general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic code to generate a thin accretion disk in Kerr spacetime and ray-tracing techniques to calculate its relativistically broadened reflection spectrum. We simulate NuSTAR observations and we test the capability of current reflection models to recover the correct input parameters. Our study shows that we can measure the correct input parameters in the case of high inclination angle sources, while we find some minor discrepancies when the inclination angle of the disk is low.