The iron K α Compton Shoulder in transmitted and reflected spectra Giorgio Matt

We calculate the Equivalent Widht of the Core and the centroid energy and relative flux of the 1st order Compton Shoulder of the iron Kα emission line from neutral matter. The calculations are performed with Monte Carlo simulations. We explore a large range of column densities for both transmitted and reflected spectra, and study the dependence on the iron abundance. The Compton Shoulder is now becoming observable in many objects thanks to the improved sensitivity and/or energy resolution of XMM–Newton and Chandra satellites, and the present work aims to provide a tool to derive informations on the geometry and element abundances of the line emitting matter from Compton Shoulder measurements.