Comptonization as an Origin of the Continuum in Intermediate Polars

In this paper we test if the ∼0.3–15 keV XMM-Newton EPIC pn spectral continuum of IPs can be described by the thermal Comptonization compTT model. We used publicly observations of 12 IPs (AE Aqr, EX Hya, V1025 Cen, V2731 Oph, RX J2133.7+5107, PQ Gem, NY Lup, V2400 Oph, IGR J00234+6141, IGR J17195-4100, V1223 Sgr, and XY Ari). We find that our modeling is capable of fitting well the average spectral continuum of these sources. In this framework, UV/soft X-ray seed photons (with 〈 kT s 〉 of 0.096 ± 0.013 keV) coming presumably from the star surface are scattered off by electrons present in an optically thick plasma (with 〈 kT e 〉 of 3.05 ± 0.16 keV and optical depth 〈 τ 〉 of 9.5 ± 0.6 for plane geometry) located nearby (on top) to the more central seed photon emission regions. A soft blackbody ( bbody ) component is observed in 5 out of the 13 observations analyzed, with a mean temperature 〈 kT bb 〉 of 0.095 ± 0.004 keV. We observed that the spectra of IPs show in general two photon indices Γ, which are driven by the source luminosity and optical depth. Low luminosity IPs show 〈Γ〉 of 1.83 ± 0.19, whereas high luminosity IPs show lower 〈Γ〉 of 1.34 ± 0.02. Moreover, the good spectral fits of PQ Gem and V2400 Oph indicate that the polar subclass of CVs may be successfully described by the thermal Comptonization as well.