Foundations of Black Hole Accretion Disk Theory

2011/04/30 by Marek A. Abramowicz, P. Chris Fragile · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Accretion disc #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Black hole (networking) #Gamma-ray burst progenitors #Intermediate polar #Intermediate-mass black hole #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Spin-flip #Stellar black hole #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.12942/lrr-2013-1

published as Living Reviews in Relativity, 16, 1 (2013) · 91 pages, 23 figures, final published version available at http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2013-1

openalex publication_date 2013/01/14 · arxiv created 2013/01/21 · arxiv updated 2015/05/28 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

This review covers the main aspects of black hole accretion disk theory. We begin with the view that one of the main goals of the theory is to better understand the nature of black holes themselves. In this light we discuss how accretion disks might reveal some of the unique signatures of strong gravity: the event horizon, the innermost stable circular orbit, and the ergosphere. We then review, from a first-principles perspective, the physical processes at play in accretion disks. This leads us to the four primary accretion disk models that we review: Polish doughnuts (thick disks), Shakura-Sunyaev (thin) disks, slim disks, and advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs). After presenting the models we discuss issues of stability, oscillations, and jets. Following our review of the analytic work, we take a parallel approach in reviewing numerical studies of black hole accretion disks. We finish with a few select applications that highlight particular astrophysical applications: measurements of black hole mass and spin, black hole vs. neutron star accretion disks, black hole accretion disk spectral states, and quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs).

Citations

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• On Magnetohydrodynamic Jet Production in the Collapsing and Rotating Envelope
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• A Long, Hard Look at the Low/Hard State in Accreting Black Holes
• A powerful local shear instability in weakly magnetized disks. I - Linear analysis. II - Nonlinear evolution
• On the Nature of the Compact Dark Mass at the Galactic Center
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• The ‘Meissner effect’ and the Blandford—Znajek mechanism in conductive black hole magnetospheres
• X-ray Properties of Black-Hole Binaries

Cited by

• The Environmental Effects on Inspiraling Binary Black Hole Systems in the Centers of the LMC and M31
• Minidisks in Binary Black Hole Accretion
• Discovery of a Time Lag between the Soft X-Ray and Radio Emission of the Tidal Disruption Flare ASASSN-14li: Evidence for Linear Disk–Jet Coupling
• What Determines the Maximum Mass of AGN-assisted Black Hole Mergers?
• Rotating stars in relativity
• Growth of Light Seed Black Holes in the Early Universe

Related

• Review: Accretion Disk Theory
• Old and New Advances in Black Hole Accretion Disk Theory
• Unified Accretion Disk Models Around Black Holes and Neutron Stars and\n Their Spectral Properties
• Accretion Processes Around Black Holes And Neutron Stars: Advective Disk Paradigm
• Accretion Discs Around Black Holes: Developement of Theory