Related papers: Accretion disks
Accretion disk instabilities are briefly reviewed. Some details are given to the short-wavelength thermal instabilities and the convective instabilities. Time-dependent calculations of two-dimensional advection-dominated accretion flows are…
Ultraluminous X-ray binaries have challenged our assumptions of extreme accretion rates in X-ray binaries, and impact other subfields of astronomy, such as cosmology, gravitational wave sources and supernov{\ae}. Our understanding of ULXs…
The models that seek to explain the reflection spectrum in black hole binaries usually invoke a point-like primary source of hard X-rays. This source illuminates the accretion disk and gives rise to the discrete (lines) and…
Disk accretion onto magnetic stars occurs in a variety of systems, including accreting neutron stars (with both high and low magnetic fields), white dwarfs, and protostars. We review some of the key physical processes in magnetosphere-disk…
Observations are providing increasingly detailed quantitative information about the accretion flows that power such high energy systems as X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei. Analytic models of such systems must rely on assumptions…
This article reviews the physics of advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs) and describes applications to several black hole X-ray binaries and galactic nuclei. The possibility of using ADAFs to explore the event horizons of black holes…
Observations of Cataclysmic Variables show a number of phenomena that do not fit easily into the standard magnetic braking scenario. These include the large spread in mass transfer rates, the low surface temperatures of many of the…
Observations suggest that accretion discs in many X-ray binaries are likely flared. An outer edge of the disc intercepts radiation from the central X-ray source. Part of that radiation is absorbed and reemitted in the optical/UV spectral…
We examine radiation and its effects on accretion disks orbiting astrophysical black holes. These disks are thermally radiating and can be geometrically and optically thin or thick. In this first paper of the series, we discuss the physics…
We review models which include advective accretion disks onto compact objects and discuss the influence of the centrifugal pressure supported high density region close to the compact objects on the emitted spectra. We show that the…
Although blazar variability is probably dominated by emission from relativistic jets, accretion disks should be present in all blazars. These disks produce emission over most of the electromagnetic spectrum; various unstable processes…
I review theoretical aspects of the interaction between the accretion stream and the disk in interacting binary systems, concentrating on recent hydrodynamic calculations. At low accretion rates, cooling is expected to be efficient, and the…
We consider the effects of advection and radial gradients of pressure and radial drift velocity on the structure of accretion disks around black holes with proper description of optically thick/thin transitions. We concentrated our efforts…
Precessing accretion discs have long been suggested as explanations for the long periods observed in a variety of X-ray binaries, most notably Her X-1/HZ Her. We show that an instability of the disc's response to the radiation reaction…
A brief review is given for X-ray properties of black hole binary systems. Topics include the effort to re-define the three states of active accretion, potential applications for general relativity in the regime of strong gravity, and the…
It is commonly assumed that in black hole accretion disks the angular momenta of the disk and the black hole are aligned. However, for a significant fraction of stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes, the momenta may not be…
We discuss properties of thermal and hybrid (thermal/non-thermal) electron-positron plasmas in the pair and energy equilibria. Various accretion disc-corona models, recently proposed to explain properties of galactic as well as…
Spin parameters of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries are currently being estimated by fitting the X-ray continuum spectra of their accretion disk emission. For this method, it is necessary to know the inclination of the…
I review recent numerical studies of accretion disks, focusing on measurements of the turbulent shear stress, or $\alpha$, in the shearing box model. I conclude with a list of astronomically relevant open questions that can be settled via…
The problem of steady-state accretion to nonrotating black holes is examined. Advection is included and generalized formulas for the radiation pressure in both the optically thick and thin cases are used. Special attention is devoted to…