Diskoseismology

Abstract

The normal mode oscillations of (geometrically thin) accretion disks around black holes and other compact objects will be analyzed and contrasted with those in stars. For black holes, the most robust modes are gravitationally trapped near the radius at which the radial epicyclic frequency is maximum. Their eigenfrequencies depend mainly on the mass and angular momentum of the black hole. The fundamental g-mode has recently been seen in numerical simulations of black hole accretion disks. For stars such as white dwarfs, the modes are trapped near the inner boundary (magnetospheric or stellar) of the accretion disk. Their eigenfrequencies are approximately multiples of the (Keplerian) angular velocity of the inner edge of the disk. The relevance of these modes to the high frequency quasi-periodic oscillations observed in the power spectra of accreting binaries will be discussed. In contrast to most stellar oscillations, most of these modes are unstable in the presence of viscosity (if the turbulent viscosity induced by the magnetorotational instability acts hydrodynamically).