X-ray technology reveals never-before-seen matter around black hole

It could be the key to quantum gravity.

More…

Tau.Neutrino said:

X-ray technology reveals never-before-seen matter around black hole

It could be the key to quantum gravity.

More…

> Cygnus X-1 … polarised hard X-rays … but there are no good polarising filters for hard X-rays and gamma rays … reflected light off the accretion disk

So far so good, but why mention polarisation if they can’t measure it? Oh I see, they can measure it, but not with a “filter”. ¿How then, a grazing incidence mirror?

> lamp-post vs extrended model

I think I understand? In the lamp-post model the light from the black hole is reflected off the accretion disk resulting in high polarisation. In the extended model the light comes directly to Earth from a spherical cloud of hot gas without reflection so low polarisation.

They observed little polarisation, therefore little reflection.

I don’t understand why they call it “bending”.