Relativistic Iron Features from X-Ray Illuminated Spots and the Measure of the Black Hole Mass in AGN

Narrow spectral features in the 5–6 keV range were recently discovered in the X-ray spectra of a few Active Galactic Nuclei. We propose that these features originate from localized spots occurring on the surface of an accretion disc following its illumination by flares. Detailed calculations of the temporal and spectral properties of these features in our proposed model can be found in Dovčiak et al. (2004). Comparison of the computed profiles with observed features can help to estimate parameters of the system. In principle this method can provide a powerful tool to measure the mass of super-massive black holes in Active Galactic Nuclei. By comparing our calculations with the Chandra</it> and XMM-Newton</it> results, we show, however, that spectra from present generation X-ray satellites are not of good enough quality to fully exploit the method and determine the black hole mass with sufficient accuracy. This task has to be deferred to future missions with both large sensitivity and high energy resolution, such as Constellation-X</it> and Xeus</it>.