Exploring the Physics of Warped Accretion Disks with X-ray Polarimetry

Many of the accretion disks of stellar mass black holes in X-ray binaries and supermassive black holes at the centers of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are likely misaligned with the angular momentum of the distant accretion disk material. In such systems, the interplay of disk viscosity and general relativistic frame dragging is expected to cause the disk to warp or break into two or more distinct planes -- this is called the Bardeen-Petterson effect. Recent general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations have found that this Bardeen-Petterson configuration is indeed possible, with the warp possibly occurring relatively close to the black hole. I will discuss the prospects of using upcoming X-ray polarimetry missions like XL-Calibur and the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) to observer Bardeen-Petterson accretion disks, based on a general relativistic ray-tracing code I developed.