Thin Accretion Disk Research Articles

Time-dependent global simulations of a thin accretion disc: the effects of magnetically driven winds on thermal instability

ABSTRACT According to the standard thin disc theory, it is predicted that the radiation-pressure-dominated inner region of a thin disc is thermally unstable, while observations suggest that it is common for a thin disc of more than 0.01 Eddington luminosity to be in a thermally stable state. Previous studies have suggested that magnetically driven winds have the potential to suppress instability. In this work, we implement one-dimensional global simulations of the thin accretion disc to study the effects of magnetically driven winds on thermal instability. The winds play a role in transferring the angular momentum of the disc and cooling the disc. When the mass outflow rate of winds is low, the important role of winds is to transfer the angular momentum and then shorten the outburst period. When the winds have a high mass outflow rate, they can calm down the thermal instability. We also explore the parameter space of the magnetic field strength and the mass loading parameter.

Analysis of Accretion Disk Around the Euler‐Heisenberg Anti‐de Sitter Black Hole

AbstractThe investigation of thin accretion disc surrounding the Einstein‐ Euler‐ Heisenberg‐ Anti‐ de Sitter black hole is demonstrated. Additionally, the black hole event horizons and compute their effective potential and equations of motion is analyzed. The specific energy, specific angular momentum, and specific angular velocity of the particles that move in circular orbits above the thin accretion disk are obtained. Also, the effects of parameters of the Einstein‐ Euler‐ Heisenberg‐ Anti De sitter black hole on specific angular velocity, specific heat energy, and specific angular momentum, have been discussed in detail. The positions of the innermost stable circular orbits and illustrate the effective potential are displayed. Furthermore, the circular orbits of black hole are obtained numerically and locates the position of the innermost stable circular orbit and event horizon. Also, the Gamma ray burst emitted from the Einstein Euler Heisenberg Anti de sitter black hole is studied.

General Physical Properties of Fermi Blazars

We study the general physical properties of Fermi blazars using the Fermi fourth source catalog data (4FGL-DR2). The quasi-simultaneous multiwavelength data of Fermi blazars are fitted by using the one-zone leptonic model to obtain some physical parameters, such as jet power, magnetic field, and Doppler factor. We study the distributions of the derived physical parameters as a function of black hole mass and accretion disk luminosity. The main results are as follows. (1) For a standard thin accretion disk, the jet kinetic power of most flat-spectrum radio quasars can be explained by the Blandford–Payne (BP) mechanism. However, the jet kinetic power of most BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs) cannot be explained by either the Blandford–Znajek mechanism or the BP mechanism. The BL Lacs may have advection-dominated accretion flows surrounding their massive black holes. (2) After excluding the redshift, there is a moderately strong correlation between the jet kinetic power and jet radiation power and the accretion disk luminosity for Fermi blazars. These results confirm a close connection between jet and accretion. The jet kinetic power is slightly larger than the accretion disk luminosity for Fermi blazars. (3) There is a significant correlation between jet kinetic power and gamma-ray luminosity and radio luminosity for Fermi blazars, which suggests that gamma-ray luminosity and radio luminosity can be used to indicate the jet kinetic power.

Shadow of Schwarzschild black hole in the cold dark matter halo

The Schwarzschild black hole in the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) halo is studied, and the radiation laws of the thin accretion disk near the black hole are discussed and summarized. The orbits of light around the black hole are also calculated. Additionally, using the Novikov–Thorne model’s light intensity function of the thin accretion disk, it is possible to solve for the shadow created by the thin accretion disk near the Schwarzschild black hole as well as the observed luminosity of the disk.

Imaging compact boson stars with hot spots and thin accretion disks

Imaging compact boson stars with hot spots and thin accretion disks

Thin accretion disk images of the black hole in symmergent gravity

In this paper, we study circular orbits, effective potential, and thin-accretion disk of a black hole in symmergent gravity (SG) within the Novikov–Thorne model in a way including the energy flux and temperature distribution. We determine bounds on SG parameters and conclude that the accretion disk could be used as an astrophysical tool to probe SG.

Shadows and photon rings of regular black holes and geonic horizonless compact objects

Abstract The optical appearance of a body compact enough to feature an unstable bound orbit, when surrounded by an accretion disk, is expected to be dominated by a luminous ring of radiation enclosing a central brightness depression typically known as the shadow. Despite observational limitations, the rough details of this picture have been now confirmed by the results of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration on the imaging of the M87 and Milky Way supermassive central objects. However, the precise characterization of both features—ring and shadow—depends on the interaction between the background geometry and the accretion disk, thus being a fertile playground to test our theories on the nature of compact objects and the gravitational field itself in the strong-field regime. In this work we use both features in order to test a continuous family of solutions interpolating between regular black holes and horizonless compact objects, which arise within the Eddington-inspired Born–Infeld theory of gravity, a viable extension of Einstein’s general relativity (GR). To this end we consider seven distinctive classes of such configurations (five black holes and two traversable wormholes) and study their optical appearances under illumination by a geometrically and optically thin accretion disk, emitting monochromatically with three analytic intensity profiles previously suggested in the literature. We build such images and consider the sub-ring structure created by light rays crossing the disk more than once and existing on top of the main ring of radiation. We discuss in detail the modifications as compared to their GR counterparts, the Lyapunov exponents of unstable nearly-bound orbits, as well as the differences between black hole and traversable wormholes for the three intensity profiles. In addition we use the claim by the EHT Collaboration on the radius of the bright ring acting (under proper calibrations) as a proxy for the radius of the shadow itself to explore the parameter space of our solutions compatible with such a result.

Confronting a Thin Disk-wind Launching Mechanism of Broad-line Emission in Active Galactic Nuclei with GRAVITY Observations of Quasar 3C 273

Quasars show a remarkable degree of atomic emission-line broadening, an observational feature which, in conjunction with a radial distance estimate for this emission from the nucleus, is often used to infer the mass of the central supermassive black hole. The radius estimate depends on the structure and kinematics of this so-called broad-line region, which is often modeled as a set of discrete emitting clouds. Here, we test an alternative kinematic disk-wind model of optically thick line emission originating from a geometrically thin accretion disk under Keplerian rotation around a supermassive black hole. We use this model to calculate broad emission-line profiles and interferometric phases to compare to GRAVITY data and previously published cloud modeling results. While we show that such a model can provide a statistically satisfactory fit to GRAVITY data for quasar 3C 273, we disfavor it as it requires 3C 273 be observed at high inclination, which observations of the radio jet orientation do not support.

On the need of an ultramassive black hole in OJ 287

ABSTRACT The highly variable blazar OJ 287 is commonly discussed as an example of a binary black hole system. The 130 yr long optical light curve is well explained by a model where the central body is a massive black hole of 18.35 $\times$ 109 solar mass that supports a thin accretion disc. The secondary black hole of 0.15 $\times$ 109 solar mass impacts the disc twice during its 12 yr orbit, and causes observable flares. Recently, it has been argued that an accretion disc with a typical Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) accretion rate and above mentioned central body mass should be at least six magnitudes brighter than OJ 287’s host galaxy and would therefore be observationally excluded. Based on the observations of OJ 287’s radio jet, detailed in Marscher and Jorstad (2011), and up-to-date accretion disc models of Azadi et al. (2022), we show that the V-band magnitude of the accretion disc is unlikely to exceed the host galaxy brightness by more than one magnitude, and could well be fainter than the host. This is because accretion power is necessary to launch the jet as well as to create electromagnetic radiation, distributed across many wavelengths, and not concentrated especially on the optical V-band. Further, we note that the claimed V-band concentration of accretion power leads to serious problems while interpreting observations of other AGN. Therefore, we infer that the mass of the primary black hole and its accretion rate do not need to be smaller than what is determined in the standard model for OJ 287.

Optical appearance of a thin-shell wormhole with a Hayward profile

The optical properties of a thin-shell wormhole (TSW) with a Hayward profile is investigated. Adopting the ray-tracing method, we demonstrate that the TSW’s contralateral spacetime is capable of reflecting a significant portion of light back to the observer spacetime. We analyze the effective potential, light deflection, and azimuthal angle of the TSW and find that these quantities are affected by the mass ratio of the black holes (BHs). Specifically, if the mass of the contralateral spacetime BH is greater than that of the original spacetime BH, and the impact parameter satisfies the condition Hb_{textrm{c2}}<b_{1}<b_{textrm{c1}}, the trajectory of the photon exhibits round-trip characteristics. Assuming the presence of a thin accretion disk surrounding the observing spacetime BH, our results indicate that the image formed by the TSW exhibits additional photon rings and a lensing band compared to an image produced by a BH alone.

Thermal radiation of thin accretion disk around Taub-NUT black hole

The effects of a gravitomagnetic charge on the thermal radiation properties of a thin accretion disk surrounding a non-rotating black hole are studied. The studied system consists of a non-rotating black hole with a non-zero gravitomagnetic charge and a Novikov–Thorne disk that is thin and optically thick. It is found that the gravitomagnetic charge enhances the gravitational field of the central black hole, resulting in an increase in the event horizon and innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) radii. However, the maximum flux of radiant energy from the accretion disk is reduced and shifted outward from the central object due to the effect of the gravitomagnetic charge. The thermal profile of the accretion disk also exhibits a similar dependence on the radial coordinate and the gravitomagnetic charge of the black hole. The radiative efficiency of the accretion disk decreases from around 6% to approximately 2% with an increase in the value of the gravitomagnetic charge by [Formula: see text]. The thermal spectra of the accretion disk are also shifted towards lower frequencies, corresponding to the gravitational redshift of electromagnetic radiation coming from the disk, with an increase in the value of the gravitomagnetic charge. One may conclude that the effect of the gravitomagnetic charge is opposite to the effect of black hole spin.

Black holes in R2-dRGT massive gravity

Massive gravity offers an interesting modification of general relativity by considering a nonzero mass for the graviton. We present a de Rham, Gabadadze and Tolley (dRGT) massive gravity model in the presence of higher order curvature gravity. We obtain a spherical solution for the field equations in this theory. The spherical solution possesses an electric charge and a cosmological constant, and it reduces to the Schwarzschild solution in the limit of a negligible graviton mass and the absence of the higher order term. We study the thermodynamics of this black hole and find that the mass of the graviton and the higher order term of gravity have a significant effect on the thermodynamic properties of the black hole. We also show the entropy of a black hole is independent of the mass of the graviton. Using the observational constraints on the coefficient of the higher order term, we determine an upper limit for the graviton mass. We compute the other thermodynamic quantities, such as heat capacity and Helmholtz free energy. Assuming that the spherical solutions are the modified Schwarzschild, we consider the relativistic thin accretion disk and study the effects of higher order term on thermal properties of the disk at the infrared limit in an asymptotic safety scenario.

Catching a nova X-ray/UV flash in the visible? Early spectroscopy of the very slow Nova Velorum 2022 (Gaia22alz)

ABSTRACT We present early spectral observations of the very slow Galactic nova Gaia22alz, over its gradual rise to peak brightness that lasted 180 d. During the first 50 d, when the nova was only 3–4 mag above its normal brightness, the spectra showed narrow (FWHM ≈ 400 km s−1) emission lines of H Balmer, He i, He ii, and C iv but no P Cygni absorption. A few weeks later, the high-excitation He ii and C iv lines disappeared, and P Cygni profiles of Balmer, He i, and eventually Fe ii lines emerged, yielding a spectrum typical of classical novae before peak. We propose that the early (first 50 d) spectra of Gaia22alz, particularly the emission lines with no P Cygni profiles, are produced in the white dwarf’s optically thin envelope or accretion disc, reprocessing ultraviolet and potentially X-ray emission from the white dwarf after a dramatic increase in the rate of thermonuclear reactions, during a phase known as the ‘early X-ray/UV flash’. If true, this would be one of the rare times that the optical signature of the early X-ray/UV flash has been detected. While this phase might last only a few hours in other novae and thus be easily missed, it was possible to detect in Gaia22alz due to its very slow and gradual rise and thanks to the efficiency of new all-sky surveys in detecting transients on their rise. We also consider alternative scenarios that could explain the early spectral features of Gaia22alz and its gradual rise.

Magnetically dominated discs in tidal disruption events and quasi-periodic eruptions

ABSTRACT The classical radiation pressure instability has been a persistent theoretical feature of thin, radiatively efficient accretion discs with accretion rates $\sim $ 1 per cent–100 per cent of the Eddington rate. But there is only limited evidence of its occurrence in nature: rapid heartbeat oscillations of a few X-ray binaries and now, perhaps, the new class of hourly X-ray transients called quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs). The accretion discs formed in tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been observed to peacefully trespass through the range of unstable accretion rates without exhibiting any clear sign of the instability. We try to explain the occurrence or otherwise of this instability in these systems, by constructing steady state 1D models of thin magnetic accretion discs. The local magnetic pressure in the disc is assumed to be dominated by toroidal fields arising from a dynamo sourced by magneto-rotational instability (MRI). We choose a physically motivated criterion of MRI saturation, validated by recent magnetohydrodynamic simulations, to determine the disc magnetic pressure. The resulting magnetic pressure support efficiently shrinks: (1) the parameter space of unstable mass accretion rates, explaining the absence of instability in TDEs and (2) the range of unstable radii in the inner accretion disc, which can shorten the quasi-periods of instability limit-cycles by more than three orders of magnitude, explaining the short periods of QPEs. In addition to examining stability of strongly magnetized discs, we predict other observational signatures such as spectral hardening and jet luminosities to test the compatibility of our disc models with observations of TDE discs.

Motion equations in a Kerr–Newman–de Sitter spacetime: some methods of integration and application to black holes shadowing in Scilab

In this paper, we recall some basic facts about the Kerr–Newman–(anti) de Sitter (KNdS) spacetime and review several formulations and integration methods for the geodesic equation of a test particle in such a spacetime. In particular, we introduce some basic general symplectic integrators in the Hamiltonian formalism and we re-derive the separated motion equations using Carter’s method. After this theoretical background, we explain how to ray-trace a KNdS black hole, equipped with a thin accretion disk, using Scilab. We compare the accuracy and execution time of the previous methods, concluding that the Carter equations is the best one. Then, inspired by Hagihara, we apply Weierstrass’ elliptic functions to the non-rotating case, yielding a fairly fast shadowing program for such a spacetime. We provide some illustrations of the code, including a depiction of the effects of the cosmological constant on shadows and accretion disk, as well as a simulation of M87*.

A brown dwarf donor and an optically thin accretion disc with a complex stream impact region in the period-bouncer candidate BW Sculptoris

ABSTRACT We present an analysis of multi-epoch spectroscopic and photometric observations of the WZ Sge-type dwarf nova BW Scl, a period-bouncer candidate. We detected multiple irradiation-induced emission lines from the donor star allowing the radial velocity variations to be measured with high accuracy. Also, using the absorption lines Mg ii 4481 Å and Ca ii K originated in the photosphere of the accreting white dwarf (WD), we measured the radial velocity semi-amplitude of the WD and its gravitational redshift. We find that the WD has a mass of 0.85 ± 0.04 M⊙, while the donor is a low-mass object with a mass of 0.051 ± 0.006 M⊙, well below the hydrogen-burning limit. Using NIR data, we put an upper limit on the effective temperature of the donor to be ≲1600 K, corresponding to a brown dwarf of T spectral type. The optically thin accretion disc in BW Scl has a very low luminosity ≲4 × 1030 erg s−1 which corresponds to a very low-mass accretion rate of ≲7 × 10−13 M⊙ yr−1. The outer parts of the disc have a low density allowing the stream to flow down to the inner disc regions. The brightest part of the hotspot is located close to the circularization radius of the disc. The hotspot is optically thick and has a complex elongated structure. Based on the measured system parameters, we discuss the evolutionary status of the system.

Neutrino Spin and Flavor Oscillations in Gravitational Fields

We study spin and flavor oscillations of astrophysical neutrinos under the influence of external fields in curved spacetime. First, we consider spin oscillations in case of neutrinos gravitationally scattered off a rotating supermassive black hole surrounded by a thin magnetized accretion disk. We find that the gravitational interaction only does not result in the spin-flip of scattered ultrarelativistic neutrinos. Realistic magnetic fields lead to the significant reduction of the observed flux of neutrinos possessing reasonable magnetic moments. Second, we study neutrino flavor oscillations in stochastic gravitational waves (GWs). We derive the effective Hamiltonian for neutrinos interacting with a plane GW having an arbitrary polarization. Then, we consider stochastic GWs with arbitrary correlators of amplitudes. The equation for the density matrix for neutrino oscillations is solved analytically and the probabilities to detect certain neutrino flavors are derived. We find that the interaction of neutrinos, emitted by a core-collapsing supernova, with the stochastic GW background results in the several percent change of the neutrino fluxes. The observability of the predicted effects is discussed.

Testing super-eddington accretion on to a supermassive black hole: reverberation mapping of PG 1119+120

ABSTRACT We measure the black hole mass and investigate the accretion flow around the local (z = 0.0502) quasar PG 1119+120. Spectroscopic monitoring with Calar Alto provides H β lags and linewidths from which we estimate a black hole mass of log (M•/M⊙) = 7.0, uncertain by ∼0.4 dex. High cadence photometric monitoring over 2 yr with the Las Cumbres Observatory provides light curves in seven optical bands suitable for intensive continuum reverberation mapping. We identify variability on two time-scales. Slower variations on a 100-d time-scale exhibit excess flux and increased lag in the u′ band and are thus attributable to diffuse bound-free continuum emission from the broad-line region. Faster variations that we attribute to accretion disc reprocessing lack a u′-band excess and have flux and delay spectra consistent with either τ ∝ λ4/3, as expected for a temperature structure of T(R) ∝ R−3/4 for a thin accretion disc, or τ ∝ λ2 expected for a slim disc. Decomposing the flux into variable (disc) and constant (host galaxy) components, we find the disc SED to be flatter than expected with $f_{\nu } \sim \rm {const}$. Modelling the SED predicts an Eddington ratio of λEdd &amp;gt; 1, where the flat spectrum can be reproduced by a slim disc with little dust extinction or a thin disc that requires more dust extinction. While this accretion is super-Eddington, the geometry is still unclear; however, a slim disc is expected due to the high radiation pressure at these accretion rates, and is entirely consistent with our observations.

Probing a non-linear electrodynamics black hole with thin accretion disk, shadow, and deflection angle with M87* and Sgr A* from EHT

Non-linear interaction between the electromagnetic fields (EMF) occurs when vacuum polarization in quantum electrodynamics (QED) happens. The field of non-linear electrodynamics, which may result from this interaction, could have important effects on black hole physics. This paper considers the asymptotically flat black hole solution in Einstein-nonlinear electrodynamics (NLE) fields. We study the effect of the NLE parameters on the black hole deflection angle using the Gauss-Bonnet theorem in weak field limits, shadow cast using the null geodesics method, and thin accretion disk using the Novikov-Thorne model. In particular, we studied the time-averaged energy flux, the disk temperature, the differential luminosity, the different emission profiles, and infalling spherical accretion. Then we show how the physical quantities depend on $\beta$ and $C$ parameters of NLE and provide some constraints on the NLE parameters using the observations of M87* and Sgr A* from EHT.

Observational properties of relativistic fluid spheres with thin accretion disks

Observational properties of relativistic fluid spheres with thin accretion disks