No Arabic abstract
Nonlinear time-dependent calculations are being carried out in order to study the evolution of vertically-integrated models of non-selfgravitating, transonic accretion discs around black holes. In this paper we present results from a new calculation for a high-alpha model similar to one studied previously by Honma, Matsumoto and Kato who found evidence for limit-cycle behaviour connected with thermal instability. Our results are in substantial agreement with theirs but, in our calculation, the disc material does not always remain completely optically thick and we include a suitable treatment for this. We followed the evolution for several cycles and determined the period of the cycle as being about 780 seconds. Advective cooling is dominant in the region just behind the outward-moving peak of surface density. The behaviour of this model is significantly different from what we saw earlier for low-alpha models (which we discussed in a previous paper) and we contrast and compare the two situations.
These notes resulted from a series of lectures at the IAC winter school. They are designed to help students, especially those just starting in subject, to get hold of the fundamental tools used to study accretion powered sources. As such, the references give a place to start reading, rather than representing a complete survey of work done in the field. I outline Compton scattering and blackbody radiation as the two predominant radiation mechanisms for accreting black holes, producing the hard X-ray tail and disc spectral components, respectively. The interaction of this radiation with matter can result in photo-electric absorption and/or reflection. While the basic processes can be found in any textbook, here I focus on how these can be used as a toolkit to interpret the spectra and variability of black hole binaries (hereafter BHB) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). I also discuss how to use these to physically interpret real data using the publicly available XSPEC spectral fitting package (Arnaud et al 1996), and how this has led to current models (and controversies) of the accretion flow in both BHB and AGN.
We investigate the accretion flows onto the supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) from the circumbinary disk with the equal mass, eccentric binary on the subparsec scale, using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code. We find that the material can be supplied from circumbinary disk, which leads to the formation of two accretion disks around the SMBBHs. The mass accretion rates significantly modulate with the binary orbital motion. These could provide the observable diagnosis of the existence of the supermassive binary black holes (e.g. OJ287) on the subparsec scale in merged galactic nuclei.
We present a theoretical model for driving jets by accretion onto Kerr black holes and try to give an answer to the following question: How much energy could be extracted from a rotating black hole and its accretion disk in order to power relativistic jets in Active Galactic Nuclei?
Spectral formation in steady state, spherical accretion onto neutron stars and black holes is examined by solving numerically and analytically the equation of radiative transfer. The photons escape diffusively and their energy gains come from their scattering off thermal electrons in the converging flow of the accreting gas. We show that the bulk motion of the flow is more efficient in upscattering photons than thermal Comptonization in the range of non-relativistic electron temperatures. The spectrum observed at infinity is a power law with an exponential turnover at energies of order the electron rest mass. Especially in the case of accretion into a black hole, the spectral energy power-law index is distributed around 1.5. Because bulk motion near the horizon (1-5 Schwarzschild radii) is most likely a necessary characteristic of accretion into a black hole, we claim that observations of an extended power law up to about the electron rest mass, formed as a result of bulk motion Comptonization, is a real observational evidence for the existence of an underlying black hole.
Numerous studies have investigated the role of thermal instability in regulating the phase transition between the cold cloudy and warm diffuse medium of the interstellar medium. Considerable interest has also been devoted in investigating the properties of turbulence in thermally unstable flows, special emphasis on molecular clouds and the possibility of star formation. In this study, we investigate another setting in which this instability may be important, namely its effect on dynamo action in interstellar flows. The setup we consider is a three dimensional periodic cube of gas with an initially weak magnetic field, subject to heating and cooling, the properties of which are such that thermal instability is provoked at certain temperature regime. Dynamo action is established through external forcing on the flow field. By comparing the results with a cooling function with exactly the same net effect but no thermally unstable regime, we find the following. The critical Reynolds number for the onset of the large-scale dynamo was observed to roughly double between the thermally stable versus unstable runs, the conclusion being that the thermal instability makes large-scale dynamo action more difficult. Whereas density and magnetic fields were observed to be almost completely uncorrelated in the thermally stable cases investigated, the action of thermal instability was observed to produce a positive correlation of the form B propto rho^0.2. This correlation is rather weak, and in addition it was observed to break down at the limit of the highest densities.