Accretion processes on a black hole

Abstract

We describe astrophysical processes around a black hole keeping primarily the physics of accretion in mind. In Section 1, we briefly discuss the formation, evolution and detection of black holes. We also discuss the difference of flow properties around a black hole and a Newtonian star. In Section 2, we present past and present developments in the study of spherically accreting flows. We study the properties of Bondi flow with and without radiative transfer. In the presence of significant angular momentum, which is especially true in a binary system, matter will be accreted as a thin Keplerian disk. In Section 3, we discuss a large number of models of these disks including the more popular standard disk model. We present magnetized disk models as well. Since the angular momentum is high in these systems, rotational motion is the most dominant component compared to the radial or the vertical velocity components. In Section 4, we study thick disk models which are of low angular momentum but still have no significant radial motion. The accretion rates could be very high causing the flow to become radiation dominated and the disk to be geometrically thick. For low accretion rates, ion pressure supported disks are formed. In Section 5, we extensively discuss the properties of transonic flows which have sub-Keplerian angular momentum. In the absence of shock discontinuities, these sub-Keplerian flows are basically advecting, similar to Bondi flows, close to the black holes, though far away they match Keplerian or sub-Keplerian disks. In presence of shocks, the post-shock flow becomes rotation dominated similar to thick disks. In Section 6, we present results of important numerical simulations of accretion flows. Significant results from the studies of evolution of viscous transonic flows are reported. In Section 7, we discuss some observational evidences of the black hole accretion. We also present a detailed model of a generalized accretion disk and present its spectra and compare with observations. In Section 8, we summarize the review and make concluding remarks.