Super-Eddington accretion discs around Kerr black holes

Abstract

We calculate the structure of the accretion disc around a rapidly rotating black hole with a super-Eddington accretion rate. The luminosity and height of the disc are reduced by the advection effect. In the case of large viscosity parameter, α>0.03, the accretion flow deviates strongly from thermodynamic equilibrium and overheats in the central region. With increasing accretion rate, the flow temperature steeply increases, reaches maximum, and then falls off. The maximum is achieved in the advection-dominated regime of accretion. The maximum temperature in the disc around a massive black hole of M=108 M⊙ with α=0.3 is of order 3×108 K. The discs with large accretion rates can emit X-rays in quasars as well as in galactic black hole candidates.