X-ray heated accretion discs around stellar mass black holes

We investigate the effects of irradiation on the vertical structure of accretion discs around black holes and its impact on the emergent energy distribution. Models are presented for a 10 Solar mass black hole in a low mass X-ray binary assuming a black body spectrum for the incident radiation. We show that for a disc annulus at a given radius, the spectra become increasingly distorted as the incident flux increases relative to the viscously generated heating flux in the disc. Significant effects are apparent for rings even at distances of ̃ 10; 000 Schwarzschild radii from the black hole for realistic dilution factors.