English

Black Hole Winds

Astrophysics 2009-07-09 v2

Abstract

We show that black holes accreting at or above the Eddington rate probably produce winds which are optically thick in the continuum, whether in quasars or X-ray binaries. The photospheric radius and outflow speed are proportional to \mo^2 and \mo^-1 respectively, where \mo is the mass outflow rate. The outflow momentum rate is always of order L_Edd/c. Blackbody emission from these winds may provide the big blue bump in some quasars and AGN, as well as ultrasoft X-ray components in ULXs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0305541,
  title  = {Black Hole Winds},
  author = {A. R. King and K. A. Pounds},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0305541},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

3 pages, no figures; MNRAS, in press (with minor corrections applied)