Cyclotron-line features from near-critical fields.: II.: On the effect of anisotropic radiation fields

We assess the impact of radiation anisotropy on the line shapes that result from relativistic magnetic Compton scattering in the low-density/high-field regime. A Monte Carlo implementation of radiation transport allows for spatial diffusion of photons in arbitrary geometries and accounts for relativistic angular redistribution. The cross section includes natural line widths and photon spawning from up to fourth-harmonic photons. In our first paper we noted that even if the photon injection is isotropic, a strongly anisotropic radiation field rapidly ensues. We now investigate the angular distribution of cyclotron spectra emerging from an internally irradiated magnetized plasma with a prescribed global geometry (either cylindrical or plane parallel) and the effects of anisotropic photon injection on the line shapes. Varying the input angular distribution permits a better understanding of the line formation process in more realistic scenarios where the radiative mechanisms are influenced by the intrinsic anisotropy of the field and by moderate relativistic beaming. In general, the line features are most pronounced along the directions of the anisotropic continuum injection and tend to be weakened in other directions, relative to the line features resulting from an isotropic continuum injection. We find that the enhancements at the line wings of the fundamental, which appear prominently in the case of isotropic continuum injection, are strongly suppressed along the direction of anisotropy in the case of beamed continuum injection, regardless of geometry or beaming pattern.