Related papers: Dynamics of warped accretion discs
Accretion discs around black holes power some of the most luminous objects in the Universe. Discs that are misaligned to the black hole spin can become warped over time by Lense-Thirring precession. Recent work has shown that strongly…
In this paper we consider the process of alignment of a spinning black hole and a surrounding misaligned accretion disc. We use a simplified set of equations, that describe the evolution of the system in the case where the propagation of…
We investigate the effect of black hole spin on warped or misaligned accretion discs - in particular i) whether or not the inner disc edge aligns with the black hole spin and ii) whether the disc can maintain a smooth transition between an…
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…
Black holes in X-ray binaries are often assumed to be rotating perpendicular to the plane of the accretion disk and parallel to the orbital plane of the binary. While the Bardeen-Petterson effect forces the inner part of the accretion disk…
An accreting massive black hole (MBH) in a galactic nucleus is surrounded by a dense stellar cluster. We analyze and simulate numerically the evolution of a thin accretion disk due to its internal viscous torques, due to the frame-dragging…
Warped accretion discs in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) exert a torque on the black hole that tends to align the rotation axis with the angular momentum of the outer disc. We compute the magnitude of this torque by solving numerically for…
We simulate the viscous evolution of an accretion disc around a spinning black hole. In general any such disc is misaligned, and warped by the Lense-Thirring effect. Unlike previous studies we use effective viscosities constrained to be…
Orientation of parsec-scale accretion disks in AGN is likely to be nearly random for different black hole feeding episodes. Since AGN accretion disks are unstable to self-gravity on parsec scales, star formation in these disks will create…
Accretion discs around black holes in X-ray binary stars are warped if the spin axis of the black hole is not perpendicular to the binary orbital plane. They can also become eccentric through an instability involving a resonance with the…
We show that in realistic cases of accretion in active galactic nuclei or stellar-mass X-ray binaries, the Lense-Thirring effect breaks the central regions of tilted accretion discs around spinning black holes into a set of distinct planes…
We consider the shape of an accretion disc whose outer regions are misaligned with the spin axis of a central black hole and calculate the steady state form of the warped disc in the case where the viscosity and surface densities are power…
Disc-driven migration is a key evolutionary stage of supermassive black-hole binaries hosted in gas-rich galaxies. Besides promoting the inspiral, viscous interactions tend to align the spins of the black holes with the orbital angular…
I review recent progresses in the dynamics and the evolution of self-gravitating accretion discs. Accretion discs are a fundamental component of several astrophysical systems on very diverse scales, and can be found around supermassive…
Accretion discs around black holes can become warped by Lense-Thirring precession if the disc is tilted with respect to the black hole spin vector. When the disc viscosity is sufficiently large that warp propagation is diffusive, the inner…
Black holes may accrete gas with angular momentum vectors misaligned with the black hole spin axis. The resulting accretion disks are subject to Lense-Thirring precession, and hence torque. Analytical calculations and simulations show that…
The inner parts of an accretion disk around a spinning black hole are forced to align with the spin of the hole by the Bardeen-Petterson effect. Assuming that any jet produced by such a system is aligned with the angular momentum of either…
We model the overall shape of an accretion disc in a semi-detached binary system in which mass is transfered on to a spinning black hole the spin axis of which is misaligned with the orbital rotation axis. We assume the disc is in a steady…
A geometrically thin, optically thick, warped accretion disk with a central source of luminosity is subject to non-axisymmetric forces due to radiation pressure; the resulting torque acts to modify the warp. Initially planar accretion disks…
Luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) and X-Ray binaries (XRBs) often contain geometrically thin, radiatively cooled accretion discs. According to theory, these are -- in many cases -- initially highly misaligned with the black hole…