Abstract
Experiments performed at the San Diego (super) computer visualization lab, using a computer graphics model of the standard Shakura-Sunyaev type accretion disk in an X-ray binary system have demonstrated the tendency of these disks to be unstable to the development of warped deformations, when located around an X-ray source of very high luminosity. Experimental determination of the threshold luminosity above which the instability is activated gave 1-10% of Eddington Luminosity, depending on binary parameters. The instability may provide a suitable mechanism for causing accretion disks to tilt out of the binary plane, thereby causing them to start precessing. These results suggest that disk precession may be a very common phenomenon in high luminosity X-ray sources; much more common than suggested by the small number of presently known cases of the precessing disk phenomenon.
Published Version
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