On the Compton scattering redistribution function in plasma

Abstract

Compton scattering is the dominant opacity source in hot neutron stars, accretion disks around black holes and hot coronae. We collected here a set of numerical expressions of the Compton scattering redistribution functions for unpolarized radiation (RF), which are more exact than the widely used Kompaneets equation. The principal aim of this paper is presentation of the RF by Guilbert (1981) which is corrected for the computational errors in the original paper. This corrected RF was used in the series of papers on model atmosphere computations of hot neutron stars. We have also organized four existing algorithms for the RF computations into a unified form ready to use in radiative transfer and model atmosphere codes. The exact method by Nagirner and Poutanen (1993) was numerically compared to all other algorithms in a very wide spectral range from hard X-rays to radio waves. Sample computations of the Compton scattering redistribution functions in thermal plasma were done for temperatures corresponding to the atmospheres of bursting neutron stars and hot intergalactic medium. Our formulae are also useful to the study Compton scattering of unpolarised microwave background radiation in hot intra-cluster gas and the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. We conclude, that the formulae by Guilbert (1981) and the exact quantum mechanical formulae yield practically the same redistribution functions for gas temperatures relevant to the atmospheres of X-ray bursting neutron stars, $T \le 10^8$ K.