Magnetically Driven Accretion Flows in the Kerr Metric. I. Models and Overall Structure

By Jean-Pierre De Villiers, J. Hawley, Julian Krolik. 2003

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This is the first in a series of papers that investigate the properties of accretion flows in the Kerr metric through three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of tori with a nearly Keplerian initial angular velocity profile. We study four models with increasing black hole spin, from a/M = 0 to 0.998, for which the structural parameters of the initial tori are maintained nearly constant. The subsequent accretion flows arise self-consistently from stresses and turbulence created by the magnetorotational instability. We investigate the overall evolution and the late-time global structure in the resulting nonradiative accretion flows, including the magnetic fields within the disks, the properties of the flow in the plunging region, and the flux of conserved quantities into the black hole. Independent of black hole spin, the global structure is described in terms of five regions: the main disk body, the coronal envelope, the inner disk (consisting of an inner torus and plunging region), an evacuated axial funnel, and a biconical outflow confined to the corona-funnel boundary. We find evidence for lower accretion rates, stronger funnel-wall outflows, and increased stress in the near-hole region with increasing black hole spin.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1056a0216fbe60591b499fcfce863200bbd96c35

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Citations in the corpus

ECHO: a Eulerian conservative high-order scheme for general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics and magnetodynamics (2007, background): “…of different physical processes (Gammie et al. 2004), the problem of jet formation in a black hole-accretion disk system (Koide et al. 2000; De Villiers et al. 2003; Mizuno et al. 2004; Nishikawa et al. 2005; De Villiers et al. 2005; McKinney 2006b; Hawley & Krolik 2006; Koide et al. 2006),…”
Numerical simulations of super-critical black hole accretion flows in general relativity (2013, background): “In the last decade a number of such codes were developed (e.g., De Villiers et al. 2003; Gammie et al. 2003; Anninos et al. 2005; Del Zanna et al. 2007).”
Global simulations of axisymmetric radiative black hole accretion discs in general relativity with a mean-field magnetic dynamo (2014, unknown): “Optically thin flows have been extensively studied by means of general relativistic (GR) magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) simulations (e.g., De Villiers et al. 2003; Gammie et al. 2003; Anninos et al. 2005; Del Zanna et al. 2007; Narayan et al. 2012; McKinney et al. 2012; Tchekhovskoy & McKinney 2012).”
GRMHD simulations of magnetized advection‐dominated accretion on a non‐spinning black hole: role of outflows (2012, background): “De Villiers et al. (2003) observed two kinds of outflows: bipolar unbound jets and bound coronal flow.”
Testing black hole candidates with electromagnetic radiation (2015, background): “Temporary clumps of matter should indeed be common in the region near the ISCO radius (De Villiers et al., 2003) and, if so, they may be studied by the GRAVITY instrument for the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) (Eisenhauer et al., 2008).”
DIRECT CALCULATION OF THE RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY OF AN ACCRETION DISK AROUND A BLACK HOLE (2008, methodology): “Following Chakrabarti (1985) and De Villiers et al. (2003), we do this by assuming that Ω ∼ λ−q, where λ2 = l/Ω.”
Three-dimensional general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamical simulation of super-Eddington accretion, using a new code HARMRAD with M1 closure (2013, methodology): “…simulations with various initial conditions lead to evolved disk states of various disk thicknesses, such as |H/R| ∼ 0.1–0.15 (Hawley & Krolik 2001; De Villiers et al. 2003; Beckwith et al. 2008b,a, 2009) and |H/R| ∼ 0.2 (Hawley & Balbus 2002; Machida et al. 2000; Martı́ & Müller 2003; McKinney &…”
THE RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY OF ACCRETION FLOWS IN INDIVIDUAL ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, background): “If magnetohydrodynamics torques (Gammie 1999; Krolik 1999; McKinney & Gammie 2004; De Villiers et al. 2003) are present, then the maxi- 2 mum efficiency can (instantaneously) exceed the limits for a no-torque disk and even exceed unity (see e.g. Agol & Krolik 2000) as the flow taps the spin energy…”
Simulations of magnetized discs around black holes: Effects of black hole spin, disc thickness and magnetic field geometry (2010, background): “The initial mass distribution is an isentropic equilibrium torus (Chakrabarti 1985a,b; De Villiers et al. 2003).”
GLOBAL STRUCTURE OF THREE DISTINCT ACCRETION FLOWS AND OUTFLOWS AROUND BLACK HOLES FROM TWO-DIMENSIONAL RADIATION-MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC SIMULATIONS (2011, background): “Global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations have been extensively performed by several groups (Matsumoto 1999; Machida et al. 2000; Hawley & Krolik 2001; Koide et al. 2001; De Villiers et al. 2003, Hawley & Krolik 2006, see, however, a review by Spruit 2010).”