Author(s): Brianna Searle
Mentor(s): Benjamin Coughenour
Institution UVU
MAXI J1803-298 is a black hole (BH) X-ray binary that is in orbit with a low-mass companion (donor) star that went into outburst and was first detected in May 2021. An accretion disk is formed from material leaving the donor star, that is spiraling toward the black hole. Matter in the accretion disk heats up to tens of millions of K and primarily emits in X-rays. We get our data from four separate NuSTAR pointings. NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) is an orbiting X-ray telescope sensitive to hard X-ray photons from 3 to 79 keV. Using both a high-density and a fixed density reflection model, we compare the reflection features in the spectrum to learn about the inner accretion disk and the environment around the BH. Future research will include using reflection models to compare two different coronal geometries for the BH. Different reflection models will assume different geometries, so we will compare the current model with a lamppost geometry.